You may have a point on the squawk, although I'd say that's a 50:50 thing, if you say squawking 7000 on initial call they'll usually give you a squawk there and then, otherwise I've not really had an issue with a zone transit, almost always granted, except when they are so busy you can't get a word in when common sense tells you it's not worth asking anyhow.
In fact the other day they let us fly a few orbits for a friend to get some photos of his house almost under their extended centreline inside the zone during a fairly busy period, you can't get much more obliging than that?