To use a quote I once heard. "It's their train set and if you want to play with it you follow their rules !" i.e. SOPs ! I would never criticise anyone for following SOPs and company procedures. If we need to do 210 knots all day to pay the bills so be it. However, having been forced to hold now twice following a Monarch (now I know why) it would have been nice if those flying at 250kts above FL100 would at least notify ATC so we can all follow suit especially going into Spain where atc assume everyone will do VNE to 4 miles !
Must be a nightmare for ATC with everyone doing different speeds these days !