1) OK no one has even touched on HF.
Why do all the majors use non-standard position reports on HF. When SELCAL check fails, and I have to listen to all those reports, it is highly frustrating to try to explain to a co-pilot, that what the American Airlines (or QF or NZ etc) guy just said is in fact not correct. Reference "NEXT" as the last word in the phrase...
i.e. "BN, ABC, XXX AT YYYY, MAINTAINING FL XXX, ESTIMATING XX AT YYYY, XXXX NEXT"
Someone show me where that is in AIP.
2) Another pet hate - use of "REFERENCE THE OMNI" in a departure report.
3) Another one - why do QLINK insist on making CTAF calls on CENTRE. They seem to be the only ones who insist on doing this - I cannot see any benefit to it other than clogging up a busy CEN freq.
4) On the clearance topic, I do "Request clearance" if OCTA and approaching the Class C step - too often recently have I had to enter a hold to remain OCTA because ATC have not given me a clearance in time.
5) On the request traffic topic, I do request traffic when conducting practice instrument approaches and about to depart for next loc - if I can get this before the Missed Approach (workload pending), then I can conduct the missed approach and depart on track, without having to hold, "REQUEST IFR TRAFFIC FOR DEPARTURE".