Sorry no excuse for my bad spelling. But you will be pleased to know I separate much better then I spell.
Yes I have to agree wholeheartedly that there are some very average controllers who give some horrible instructions like speed and rate of decent at same time etc etc. They seem to have no understanding that it takes alot of time to turn an a/c or slow it down. So a refresher course on a/c performance would be a great thing.
Soft Altitude yes you are right. When you are on a vector you are not flying the STAR/SID but once given own nav and and resume star then you have to comply. As I said before there are some very average instructions given but by the same token I don't really believe that it takes 50nm to slow from 290ias to 250ias as often seems the case when pilots feel we are unfairly delaying them.
LDG NO BLUE I do see that there are some problems with confidence in the system but we have the same problems as you. Like the QTR pilot who called with the phrase "center morning" no callsign no level. When asked who was calling the response was "its QTR here" no number no level . Asked which QTR as there were 3 inbound at the same time got the callsign code tracking estimate destination, but still no level. Eventually got level out of him but for the rest of the flight it took at least 3 calls to get him to listen/respond. And this was one of the pilots who missed the requirement by 6000+ ft..... would you be confident trying to control a/c who were that bad? As far as prompting for decent/climb there are not just a/c restrictions but there are also airspace restrictions. Often the delay in giving you what you want is not evident but in reality we are working hard with co-ordination and strip board trying to get what you want before you ask for it. One of the other threads discussed up the whole flightdeck visits etc but it would also help if you guys came into the center to see what it is like for us. You would learn alot and see just how busy it is.
ATCO1962 spelling issues noted and will try harder in the future.
But still no real answer as to why requirements seem optional to some pilots??