Are 2 4 1s pointless these days?

I think 2-4-1s can only work when there is a more "liberal" regime i.e. when there is less (real or imagined) fear of Ofcom and/or the producers have more balls than they do now. There seemed to be a very short period recently on BS1 when they staged a bit of a revival with pairings like Lucy/Dannii and Caty/Mica, but that soon stopped. Not sure if this was to do with their having a Dutch licence for this channel - lots of theories abound.
As things stand, they are a complete waste of time for the viewer/caller, and only serve as a rather obvious attempt by the companies to attempt to double the revenue for a channel by having two or more girls each with a phone on a single set. I don't think that always works, as many callers are put off I believe by hearing another conversation going on right next door. If you look back at the halcyon period of 2-4-1s in 2010 you'll see almost without exception the great ones were two girls with one phone i.e. it wasn't just about trying to maximise revenue.
I think not only are 2-4-1s in the current climate a waste of time, they actually have a damaging effect. A classic example in the last couple of days has been S66 shoe-horning some of their best girls into the tiny office set virtually all night where they aren't allowed to interact and in fact can barely move. It's quite an achievement to squeeze such boring performances out of the likes of Kandi, Clare and Kerri Lee but somehow they managed it!
So I think sadly there should be no more 2-4-1s for the time being, and certainly 2 phones should be banned altogether. BS seem to be running them down a bit, and RLC appear to have stopped altogether (?) so maybe it will happen naturally. A shame as I'm a huge fan of the genre.