Green Goblin, you are required to report position to ATS prior to changing levels outside controlled airspace. This is when they will give you traffic. You don't need to say "request traffic", just tell them your position and what you are about to do, they will always come back with a traffic statement. If you are in controlled airspace then they may wait until you are approaching class G before giving traffic or handing you off to the low level controller for traffic.
UTR, isn't the call of "visual" made to indicate you can make a visual approach, therefore if you are "visual on top" then you are not visual at all (unable to navigate with reference to the ground or water) and should say nothing.