Hi Duke.. you said: "Also, when below the Transition Altitude there is no requirement to inform ATC if your descent rate either is or will be less than 500 fpm."
I've seen you write this elsewhere and I'm curious to know what sort of bee there is in your bonnet about this? Personally I would be very, very grateful if pilots would tell me about dramatic changes to their descent rate below the TA as I have had more than one very serious fright caused by crews levelling off at intermediate altitudes for totally inexplicable reasons. Typically, I was descending an inbound onto one of Heathrow's westerly approaches from LAM and at the same time descending a Northolt inbound heading north off Biggin. I desperately needed levels so asked the Heathrow guy to report passing 5000 ft, which he did. I then cleared the Northolt traffic down to 5000 ft... but the Heathrow guy stopped his descent at around 4700 ft, causing a lot of laundry for me later. If he had told me that he was going to reduce his descent rate it would have prevented a nasty incident. Remember that old and long forgotten word "Airmanship"?