These priestless bishops don't have scads of deacons. They don't have secular priests, religious priests, deacons, monastics, nuns, ---they don't have anything.
They're not baptizing or marrying people in great numbers, either. They're losing their congregations.
They are not inspiring people to give their lives on any level, period.
They fail all the way down the line.
An abundant number of deacons doesn't correlate with a scarcity of priests, that I can see. Priests and deacons are not in competition, such that encouraging one kind of vocation would suppress the other.
That's my take on it, anyway.
Is the idea that men who *would* have been priests, decide instead to get married with the thought that they'll later go for deacon instead? Well, that's plausible, but I haven't seen the numbers. I'm interested in the hypothesis, but remain unpersuaded.
Show me. I'm the type that responds well to evidence.
But you seem to be proposing that scads of deacons could be their solution.
And the solution is married priests, who had no desire to be deacons?
What if the bishop doesn't get enough takers? What's next? Womyn priests?