It's not broken in the "regularly kills people" sense, which is good. It is broken in the "inefficient and capacity limited" sense, which means flights cost more, have fewer departures when demand is highest, and we are still stuck with human air traffic controllers doing the most stressful aspects of the job, causing high turnover and, when they walk out on strike, airport shutdowns.
All that means that it's crystal clear to Upper-Management that air traffic control is Hard!, and it must be properly resourced. It makes me feel safer (even if probably more risky due to human error).
The minute automation comes in, an army of Crazy! PMs will begin to demand that everything has to be done due Thursday evening, so QA can test over the weekend, and then the Bean-Counters come in and slash every specification of hardware because its not quote-Efficient!-unquote.
Would you really want to fly in a world like that????
Also, the original article mentions a contractor who committed suicide by taking down the Chicago ATC system. Isn't suicide a leading cause of death in air traffic controllers as well? Perhaps the systems aren't working so great now given the real human cost.
