Canadian lawyer trained in Aus here. I have seen - to some extent - both sides. Canada is fused.

In our fused system the split happens naturally, and people either specialize in litigation or solicitor work. The fusion has the benefit of allowing access to justice in smaller jurisdictions as the "country lawyer" types can appear in court as a trained barrister, or do solicitor's work as needed.

Your point, if I'm getting it right, is that litigation is a specific set of skills is well taken. The advantage is that I can switch to barrister work if someone was willing to take me on as a junior - and I'd be bound by the requirement of competence to ensure I'm not royally fucking it up.

There will always be bad lawyers - but removing the legally mandated split in the profession hasn't caused our system to explode.