Dedicated channels are fine if there are not multiple things on at the same time. I don't have Sky Sports, so I can't speak from personal experience. But I have been reading posts on the Digital Spy forum, and people have been complaining that since the new dedicated channels replaced the general sport channels, a whole pile of matches have been put onto a red-button service. And, as I said in an earlier comment, that means they can't be recorded.
With all the football rights that Sky Sports has, having a channel dedicated to the Premier League and a channel for all their other football was never going to work. They needed at least 2 general football channels.
Yes, they've had problems with football, world cup qualifiers with more than 1 home nation on at the same time. They had to e.g. have Scotland on Main, Wales on Football and Northern Ireland highlights only/red button or something like that. Was actually being a bit facetious with the Cycling idea but maybe a grain of truth. One extra channel would solve a lot of the problems. Perhaps they'll reconsider how they want to do things going forward when it comes to the Olympics, but then again maybe not.