Another informative and well-reasoned post from Goldfish Jack, as always. Quite frankly, having come from a contract background, I am continually impressed with the professional controlling we receive in SA. You only have to cross the border into Gabs to immediately see the difference.
On a thread related note, I heard a Skygod getting into yet another radio flurry at FAJS the other day when asking for an intersection take off. ATC told him to can the idea and join everybody else at the hold for 03L. He went to great pains to explain that 'we don't want to jump the queue, its ALL ABOUT THE GAS!!!'. ATC then said something which I didn't catch, to which the reply was 'No thanks, as long as the point's been made', or something like that. I didn't understand it at the time, since I reckoned he would have held either at the intersection or at the full length hold, and as somebody mentioned, we're all swanning around at idle thrust when taxiing anyway.