Its much better if you are nice. Coming into a certain London airport one night and there were only 2 aircraft around - us and an unknown, ahead of us. We were slowed day way early, and just accepted what ATC were saying. Out of interest, we asked what the type was that was ahead (we were in a jet). ATC then told us it was a Shorts and explained that he didn't have enough room to get us in ahead, even though he knew we were the faster aircraft. I said this was no problem, and the Shorts guy then joined in the banter too, apologising and saying that they would pedal as fast as they could! No one got annoyed or stressed and we only landed a couple of minutes later than we would have done anyway.
You hear people hassling ATC alot on the radio, and you just hope that ATC don't help them when they are just being plain rude.