True, but that's annoying enough, isn't it....? After finding your Sqn SFO to check your wording and add his signature, you need the Boss's auth, then up to OC Ops, then find the right person in Eng Wg to get it faxed off before some spurious deadling expires....
The point is, it's obviously annoying to some, as some people don't declare them for these reasons. I've filled out a couple and they're not that bad, but I remember eeking my way back to base with an undercarriage snag once. The captain gets a call from ATC saying his pan is acknowledged, as his "emergency" was phoned through from the unit we were operating when it happened. His first words weren't that he was glad they knew, or that there'd be a DAO mate rushing to the tower, or that at least we'd have priority; it was "sod it, I was hoping to avoid the paperwork..."
If the paperwork's of the sort where people can't be bothered to do it, then it's going to be one of the things they think about when wondering if a couple of little captions are worth declaring a pan for; when they should be thinking about what's safest!