Lots of good stuff here for you, bemused, and I agree with it all! Another very germane factor is that most GA airfields do not have air traffic control, only an A/G service which removes one of the layers of discipline you are used to in military and airline flying. Where I instruct, for example, there's a busy parachuting school which effectively removes the 'dead side' so there's a combination of microlights, SEPs, helos, canopies in the air and the drop aircraft trying to cut in to land for the next uplift. Compared with Heathrow or Leeming, it's anarchy - so next to impossible to standardise. Welcome to general aviation.