couldn't agree more Danny, often wondered when climbing out of Manchester why i am now required to be level 5 miles before the point they put in for that purpose (50 before BIG) and why no mention has ever been made to me of this point ?
perhaps ATC dont have it on their screens yet ? same goes for inbound 25 instead of 20nm before TNT ??
Always wondered why ATC put us on a heading to avoid traffic when if they said go direct to * you could draw a straight line from the a/c to the point and they would see our exact track ?