Well there are right and wrongs everywhere...
I would expect that an expectation would be met, or planned to be met. Yes it's not a clearance, but it is what you can expect... i.e. expect FL110 or lower by 40 DME; due traffic at 80DME I can't clear you to it, but I will at 70DME.
If you are now well above profile (for the expectation) I would have expected advice that "we can't make it"; not just wondering down even at a good rate cause you've given the idea of making it away (I might not have put two and two together because of the other 8 conflicts I'm looking at)...
It might have been obvious to the ATC (when he asked you) that you weren't going to make it, but they were planning on you getting there as there wasn't subsequent advice. I guess you could have been cleared at anytime to make the expectation an actual requirement; might have gone ugly if...
Personally I try to avoid expectations, as they can creat expectation bias, ie taking the expectation as the clearance. I prefer to give a clearance which will allow subsequent restrictions to be met, based upon my knowledge of aircraft performance and the given conditions of the day. ie if you had to be point X at FL110; I'd get you to a level when I would expect you to be able to meet the restriction actually needed... This can be ugly too... If you have to level out early it's bad for fuel economy; pilots hate being pushed around and tend to ask why this is happening which ends up in you explaining the expectation bias event etc.