Would be funny if Wessex Trains came back
Would it be so bad, though? As someone living in Devon at the time I well remember their predecessor, Wales and West. They did do some good, refurbishing the 153s (which needed it) and the 158s (which didn't really) and installing information systems at their stations (as a large number of their stations, probably the majority had no real-time information at all until then). But they continued to cut service frequencies on pretty much or the Devon/Cornwall branch lines and generally run the service down. The trains were usually very dirty (particularly the 150s, which were all un-refurbished) and felt run down, as did the stations. Reliability was in my experience poor. My over-riding memory was of a railway in decline.
Then along came Wessex trains. They did a good refurbishment of the 150s, maintained the stock much better, improved the stations, but most importantly not just reversed the cuts Wales and West implemented but increased service frequently still more (e.g. every 30 minutes on the St Ives line). They seemed to make much more effort, e.g. bringing in the loco-hauled sets on the Heart of Wessex Line on the busiest services and generally seemed to get out of the "managed decline" approach that came before and improved the service quality.
Then along came First Great Western. The 158s went from Devon and Cornwall. So to did the nicely refurbished 150s and in their place we got a mixture of other operators un-refurbished cast-off 150s and lots of Pacers (which had not operated in Devon or Cornwall for many years prior to that, all locals had been sprinters).
I appreciate that in financial terms separating out the local West country services into a small local franchise would mean it would need to be heavily subsidised, but history would suggest it would not necessarily lead to a worse service.