That happened to me on one of my XC's. I had made my call to a MATZ but getting no reply i transmitted my intentions and did them anyway. If the zone was active then I would have seen it in the AIC or NOTAMed. Another a/c called up about 5 mins later and did the same. Its good that he did too because his planned route intersected mine and he was at the same altitude. So I kept an even better look out going up to that point. Of course I still mentioned things like entering your zone, leaving your zone, changing frequency etc, basically position reports addressed to ATC so he would be comfortable.
I do agree that what was done was good and obivously safer, but isnt the point of transmiting blind to tell everyone your intentions and as the PIC of your a/c make choices about its safety without electing some other a/c as a controlling authority who probably wont have good enough training or an acceptable overview of the situation and who won't be there long enough to make decisions for everyone else?
No flames required, just wondering what the general concensus is
FFW