Agreed but the incident I refer to occurred where no ATC was present.
There is unfortunately an assumption that when the radio is unmanned anything goes. In fact, blind calls become even more important at every stage of the joining procedure. I often call downwind, late downwind, base and final. The problem with chatter between aircraft is that with the discipline out of the window people a liable to loose track of what others are doing. The easy way out is a blind call: "G-XXXX not visual with aircraft on base ... request position" or similar.