Agress with GARP. However, some Eurpoean ATC is most definatley not in the same class as the likes of UK and doesnt instill the confidence that we would prefer!
I have only ever ONCE experienced what I would class as severe turbulence - we couldn't read any instruments, took a few goes at getting hold of the ALT selector and cockpit was full of charts, meal packs, papers etc etc!
This was south of alps over Italy and ATC did same, responed to our request for descent with 'standby'. However our reply was 'Mayday, we are descending to FL200' and down we went. That cut through the red tape!