Uplinker, I agree with everything you've said. My only point is that it's not necessary to say it out loud, to understand what's about to happen. We can use our inside voices.
As I said to the previous poster, my airline (and if I'm not mistaken, at least the five largest operators in the US) does not make FMA calls. Several hundred Airbus airplanes flying around every day with no FMA calls.In fairness, we do a lot of things that are not Airbus SOP (don't get me started on our checklists). At the end of the day, I'm going to follow my SOP. If that means calling out the FMA, so be it. Right now, we're not required to make any FMA calls, so we don't.