Having been there in a supervisory capacity I can tell you that CIC can only make recommendations . Whether the conning officer on the bridge accepts CIC’S input or not is out of “Combat’s” hands. Of course the last time I was in CIC was 30 years ago so perhaps protocol has changed.
And it goes without saying if the situation didn’t improve I or the watch officer would be banging down the Captain’s door.
I doubt the protocols have changed any. That system has worked well for many decades. Having said that, as a OOD I have received some very wrong recommendations from CIC. That will be part of the investigation. What did combat see,what did they recommend, and when did they recommend it. It has been my experience, sometimes you can get so much contact info from combat that it is difficult to assimilate. In Sagami Wan there may be 25 or more ships with in surface radar range. If combat is reporting all them to the bridge it gets very confusing. When I conned into Sagami Wan, I would instruct combat to track all contacts but only report contacts with CPAs closer than XXX yards. That deduced the shear volume of reporting from combat and allowed me to concentrate on those ships that may have posed a threat to the ship.