As someone who "plain speaks" regularly, I think a few things need to be said. I can plain speak, because I am allowed to. In oz, it's not that simple. The situations we are talking about are not the big, standing in court after a mid-air type scenarios, they are the daily minutia that gets your arse in trouble on a local level ie. with your boss. If you don't follow the book, then you expose yourself to the range of being told off, formal recording of your transgression (which might bite you later on), disciplinary action or even dismissal. All on a local level. It's the culture in AsA. Before anyone starts with the "just get the job done" drivel- it'd be nice, but it's not the way things work. If your company SOPs say that you must fly the ILS if it's available, and you decide it would be nice to hand fly the arrival every now and then, what is going to happen to you? I'd hazard a guess at; any of the results previously mentioned. Having said that, there is a notable over-interest in the minutia (standards checking) in oz (IMHO). The reason being that there isnt a lot to pick on, so the culture is pretty tiresome.
Add to the mix a propensity for the ever-increasing practice of making statement's like "we are a bit low on fuel" "we have a sick pax" "we are running late, can we...." If ATC is expected to take the "just see the big picture and help out approach", pretty soon everyone is going to very pissed off with guys who seemingly can't manage their fuel getting the 'no delay, straight in' every time.
Priority declaration requests are standardised for a reason. The ATC who is making decisions based on what you tell him, is in the same boat as the Capt who has to weigh up the ramifications of declaring emergency. What seems "anal" stems from the same culture that has pilots fearing fuel emg declarations.