Great thread, inevitably we will always suffer from differences in perspective.
There is no doubt, from our perspective one of the biggest improvements would be to cut down the level of verbosity (from both sides of the mike). I listen to some pilots making a mini-series out of a simple request and indeed some of the more inexperienced ATCO's can be a bit flowery in their communication style. With all the human & cultural variability we have in our environment these are not easy problems to fix.
However, it would be worth lobbying-educating the regulator to not insist on a controller stating things like the ATIS code and QNH, when a pilot has just stated them. Controllers should be able to use their judgement as to content of RT instructions, not to have them regulated into becoming unwieldy & verbose.