I've had aircraft on short final say "can we roll to 79?" or "OK to take xx turn-off", which suggests their decision was not made 10 miles out.
That indicates to me they had planned / briefed / discussed options and decided 79 would help and "we'll ask". What I cannot cope with, having decided to do a Flap 3 landing iaw my company's SOPs, is when LHR tower @ 500' direct me to make exit XX which I have not planned for, and realistically cannot (easily) make without altering Flap and/or autobrake and/or a mini rebrief at 1NM - all possible but undesirable and not optimal safety. Altering Flap I can do, but will get me a phone call / b*llocking.
Most pilots operating scheduled services know what the next frequency will be and have it on the other box
"Most" might be so, but in that I have operated out of LHR for 15yrs+ and still cannot tell you which Gnd I will get (.9? .7? .85?) and that's somewhere I know. Try looking at the plates for large foreign airports and the box gives 5+ Gnd Freqs. Secondly, people have been picked up on route checks for pre-selecting the Gnd Freq with some *** about the App frequency being better in case of a GA. I am not of that school, but again, do not think it an appropriate SOP to be trying to guess the Gnd Freq on short finals and have 1 pilot dialing it up.
So I agree with your points if we want to "gash/hack it". Not if we want good practice. We whould not be relying on "local knowledge"
NoD