"Take a scenario where you ASSUME a distress and helicopters and boats are launched to rescue. It turns out not to be the case for the Dinghy was being used for fishing. Meanwhile another genuine distress is transmitted. The Helicopter is not now able to attend immediately until it has refueled and the rescue boat is now going in the opposite direction. We now have a mess. Make the appropiate call and allow the professionals to deal with what THEY are trained to do. They do it bloody well!"
I dont understand your point. Are you suggesting there is some magic (which I am not aware of) in a Mayday over a Pan?
In the scenario you are indicating it is indeed up to the emegency services to prioritise the calls. They will want as much information from you as possible in order to make that call.
Whilst correct RT is clearly very improtant so is common sense. You have seen a liferaft in the water or a dinghy. What do you know about what you have seen - if anything? This is the information really needed by the emergency services. They also need to know precisely where it is. Can you give them a GPS position accurately?
As to RT generally, whilst as I have said correct RT is important, it is also very easy to forget the whole purpose of the excercise - to exchange information ACCURATELY and QUICKLY. In my experience the greatest weakness in most PPLs RT is that they dont think about EXACTLY what they want to say first.