A small point on the direct routeings issue.
When you are given direct routeings without first requesting them, in my experience 90%+ are purely to shorten your routeing and not help us resolve conflictions. How about some gratitude, it is certainly an increasing trend that it is taken for granted. We do not have to do it and offer it on the whole as a 'polish' to what I believe is already an excellent service - a thankyou would not go a miss.
To expand this, in our ever increasingly flowed environmaent at LACC, when we get you up from your capped FL180 to as high as FL400 (if you have an orange tail) we are not doing it to make our lives easier. We are taking on extra work that the powers at be tell us not to do. It does however get you there quicker and with more fuel remaining - so the previous point also applies.
If you take us for granted and believe it is your right, it aint going to happen as often as you would like. I know that if I give a late descent or let an a/c level off, or have to vector them half way around the sky - I thank them or apologise accordingly unless that is I am nearly going under.
I believe our relationship to be a good one, don't let it deteriorate. How about some more of you pay us a visit to sunny swanick and see what its really like now that your doors are locked firmly shut to us!!!!