In football management some managers are the complete package and have a coaching staff that is somewhat interchangeable, while others are limited in various aspects of the game but are good leaders who assemble a strong team around them that collectively cover all the bases.
I think it's become quite apparent that Cook was the later and his success was a coaching team effort with Richardson, Barry, Meace, Proctor and Colgan being integral rather than just supporting parts to him.
There is absolutely no shame in that as I imagine that is what most managers do - you can't always be great at everything so it's just a case of making sure you recruit the expertise you need across your staff. The issue that did Cook in was his complete inability to replace the expertise lost and without them his limitations where exposed badly.
He had Gary Roberts who had no coaching experience, our former kit man and Francis Jeffers who had no coaching experience above Everton u23s. I'm not sure if Cook over estimated his own ability or if he prioritised friends over experience or something else but it was asking for trouble.
You compare that to who Richardson went out and got in for us and it's night and day. Richardson brought in people with much better experience than him to make his pool of knowledge deeper - If he was weak at something you knew one of his staff would've had it covered. While if Cook had an area of weakness he would be turning to people with far less experience or know how than himself.
Cook was often accused of nepotism by always hiring his friends and looking at his coaching staff it seems to suggest that could've been his downfall at Ipswich. As surely no one open to brining in the best people for the job would've gone in to Ipswich with that coaching team based on ability and experience.
I think if Cook hired our staff and Richardson hired Cooks we'd probably be the one's sitting in mid table after a stinking start and Ipswich would be at the top. I think Cook set himself up to succeed on the pitch with his signings but set himself up to fail with his recruitment for his staff.