Standards Noise
You've high-lighted a common problem; because here in the UK the "Authority" rides rough-shod over acceptable ICAO practices. They seem to think that this tiny island is so unique that practices and procedures that work perfectly well throughout the rest of the world are somehow inappropriate here.
Likewise the treatment of regional ATC units and their regular traffic. I reckon that low-fare multi-sector-day pilots exhibit a far higher standard of airmanship and ATC awareness than some of their main-line cousins who may do one landing per 10 hours as opposed to five landings or so.....what's more the lo-co is flying in the cauldron of the busiest, densest, and most demanding confusion of airspace anywhere.
One airport I was at required each and every vehicle movement to be positively controlled.....even though the drivers knew every inch of the airfield. Another airport was so busy and with a congested ground freq [and it was three times the size] that vehicles were regularly allowed to operate on own look-out.
My submission is that if a practice [such as no need to pass elevation] is safe at one airport and there has been no attributable accident or adverse evidence, then why can't that practice be adopted at all airports?
...Heathrow has so many exemptions and special procedures that one could be forgiven for thinking it was in a foreign country for all the commonality its practices have with other UK airfields.....and that smells wrong, wrong, wrong.