Morooned---I think Scooby just cleared it up! The few knots that are carried to keep the flaps up mean little when you just passed Desdi on the downwind for 30L and have 20 plus track miles to go. It makes no sense to go flaps 1 etc to slow by 6 knots and drag it around.
In the end, good airmanship says that a simple response to ATC asking to stay at min clean "x knots" clears up any issues - he'll tell us whether that works or not and, as Scooby mentioned, that is generally the case.
My comment about TCAS was about its use on final. If I see the guy 3 miles straight ahead of me I know I am tight and vice versa. Speeds on final are much more straight forward (180 and 160) and so much easier to maintain.