Well I stand corrected then, but then again, I still believe it is confusing for the pilots involved and should therefore be changed...but then again..who am I...
I agree, PGA... it is grounds for confusion, but I think it's the lesser of two evils, maybe. If the controller was required to sift the terms and pick 'level or 'altitude' or 'height' upon making the 'report request', and got it wrong, AND if pilots were allowed (read: conditioned) to use the 'report request' format as a framework for their answer, then we could have a nightmare situation. One mistake would likely lead to another (a wrongly reported level/altitude) and it would easily be missed.
Whereas, if we as pilots just accept (and remember) that the question is always arbitrarily-worded "level", and that WE must do the thinking, we are (hopefully) less likely to be led into thinking the answer is also a level, when it should be an altitude.
I agree, it's not ideal... but then what would be a suitable replacement for the word 'level' in the report request? Height's out, altitude's out (for the same reasons), 'vertical position' is a mouthful (and potentially confusing if readability is bad and 'vertical' isn't heard). 'Upwardness' and 'Thingy' probably wouldn't cut it
(I'm being silly now, I know).
I guess it's the old "choose something that's 'fail-safe' rather than 'fail-dangerous'" scenario, isn't it? In which case, 'level' is probably best.
Of course I could be COMPLETELY wrong here about all of this, so let's see what our resident ATCO says!