A story about airspace deconfliction:

During WW2 the British Bomber Command bombarded German cities, German anti-air artillery shot back. The effectiveness of the AAA was nearly proportional to the time they were able to shoot at targets.

Bomber command decided after some operational research that a different manoeuvring scheme would allow to drastically cut down the duration of bombers over a city.

Some afternoon the bomber fleet's cockpit crews were briefed about the flight plan and they began to protest: A thousand bombers dropping bombs over a city in only a few minutes would lead to collisions.
The OR people replied that they had calculated that most likely two bomber crews would be lost by collision, but many more would be saved because of the AAA's reduced lethality.
The bomber fleet sortied, executed the plan, returned home - and only two bombers had collided over the target. Losses to AAA were unusually low.


I regret today's deconfliction craze would not allow for this. It has become a self-licking ice cone, an end in itself.