PPR can mean not just by telephone, but if your entry states PPR by phone and folks do not comply with that, then this is bad form.
Filing a Flight Plan is not the same as PPR.
People setting off without (apparently) obtaining the weather is similarly bad form.
Sadly enough some of the airmanship displayed is so bad that we can, in this case, say that at least they did not do an instrument approach in likely below minimums conditions.
The problem with posts along the lines of: 'I saw this, don't you all think it is terrible' is that the information provided can be limited and onesided, making it difficult to give a meaningful comment.