Couldn't agree more.
I've hardly ever gone back to an independent either; it's far too hit and miss and the good ones are almost impossible to book, especially at short notice.
What WL says about continuity in saunas is bang on. Also, you can make reliable bookings on the day, or if not you can sit in the lounge and make some kind of assessment of the girls you don't know. They're generally safe and clean. My top 5 best punts have been in saunas.
Of course this is a bit of a bugger if you're based in Glasgow, like me. Even more of a bugger is the fact that, with the licensing gone, the way is clear for them all to be banged to rights as brothels over the next year or so.
But.....if, as some think, the good ones (no trafficking, no drugs, no money laundering, having the sexual health people/immigration/police in regularly and voluntarily) are allowed to stay open in Edinburgh, there's then no reason why such establishments couldn't open elsewhere e.g. Glasgow.
They wouldn't need a public entertainment licence, they'd only need planning and to keep on the right side of environmental health. If they were all tickety-boo, like the Edinburgh ones that the police weren't touching, the police couldn't touch them either, especially since it's a national force.
It would be a decriminalisation rather than a legalisation (which is never going to happen, no matter how sensible it is). If it does happen, of course, nobody in the "authorities" will admit it's a conscious policy. Because of the high costs of setting up and running a "good"/"new" sauna there wouldn't be many of them, even if they did spread. Say, 3 each in Edinburgh and Glasgow and 3/4 in the rest of the country
So, the next year will tell........either they'll all be shut down in Edinburgh after a massive police evidence-gathering operation, multiple court appeals and a blaze of publicity or they'll be quietly decriminalised and "good"/ "new" saunas will open elsewhere.
That's my take; though there may be a good dose of wishful thinking in there!