There is a difference between asking the controller if he/she has any ride reports and asking them if they “have any good altitudes”, or, “is it better lower”. In the former, you are augmenting the met information you should already have; in the latter, you are revealing yourself to be unprepared. Just my opinion.
With respect to the US, one aspect to consider is that the dissemination of turbulence PIREPs can be quite slow, and when using text-based communication with dispatch, tedious at best. The live oral communication with ATC is capable of trading a great deal of current information quickly.
There is, admittedly, a tendency to blather on in the States, but that has a lot to do with our love of conversational radio phraseology as well as our unlimited lack of courtesy on the airwaves…personally I like to wait ten seconds after switching frequencies before I transmit, but that’s not a universal habit!
And as far as baseball scores go…there are two distinct eras in aviation. In the early era, we asked ATC for the Super Bowl score, and then made a PA to the cabin relaying the score. In the modern era, we call the cabin, get them to ask a passenger for the Super Bowl score, and then pass it on to ATC. Different world today…