Reading this, I'm thinking that all the convoluted application of 'the rules' is removing something pretty important, namely common sense, though to be fair it is increasingly absent from life in general these days.
If you're tooling around, knowing another aircraft is in the vicinity, but you can't see it, why doesn't matter - if you stuffed up, so what? Break the chain. Talk. Ask. One of the major reasons for having a radio is alerted see and avoid - it'll hopefully get both of you looking in the right direction. Ask for forgiveness later (if necessary), hard to do that if you're tumbling earthward..
For what it's worth where I learned to fly (aus), it was entirely common to coordinate directly with other a/c in the circuit.