Chat Operators used to have access to all settings chat Owners enjoy, including changing a chat between open and closed and adding more Operators among things.
I can see both the security issue here and a solution for small chat channels to just create a new version of a chat, with an active Owner.
Searching forums however I can see there were disappointed people with this change who wanted to keep the old functionality for number of reasons, also these people were from larger communities.
Is bringing back the old way of how things work at least in plans or a to do list?
That option was removed when CCP introduced the new chat system because mods could remove all other mods and practically do a hostile take over of channels. CCP limited that to Owners only now.
If you want new operators, you can probably sent a support ticket and ask for a person to be added.
And I can see the threat but what about Owners who quit Eve or communities which worked fine regardless of the existing threat? People can steal assets or specialize in gaining trust and taking hostile take over of numerous newbie corps but people are supposed to be safe on a chat?
Also is this reason the real cause, is there a source for that? Change happened with introducing new chat, which was so problematic to get to work right that CCP set themselves a deadline beyond which they would revert back to the old system. It’s pretty easy to imagine there could have been no spare time and no spare effort to include all of the original functionality.