I have to agree that the majority of controllers do a fantastic job often with great humour and under high stress. I have been in plenty of military towers in my service career but never a civil one which I would like to see.
There are still services that are uncooperative, Solent in my experiance is the worse followed by Stanstead. I have been to Guernsey 3 times in the last 2 months and the Isle of Wight 2 and not once have I received a service from Solent. Just the usual stay clear of controlled airspace then they ignore you for 10 minutes while the radio is quiet. Coming back from Guernsey a few weeks ago in a fast twin I called them up well outside of there zone for transit, got the usual "stay clear". Repeated calls and they then came back to me and told me that I was in there airpspace. Acording to my DME and GPS I was still 10 miles outside and 1000ft under! They then sent me all the way around the outside I would imagine as "punishment". When I complained I got another controller and was immediatly allowed to return to a north course under own navigation.
The last trip I avoided Solent completely and talked to Bourneomouth who were outstanding and gave me a RIS untill handoff at the Jersey zone. Coming back we had the same excellant service.
Maybe this is Solents way of keeping GA out of there space?
The main problem is that SAM is THE VOR when coming back from the CI's and that section of coast is frequently IMC.