I spent 22 years flying in the US and have been based in the British Isles for the last 4 years. My observation is that because UK pilots have been flying the system their entire careers their feeling is, of course it works like that.
When I first moved here I tried to get advice from my colleagues but their assumption of my knowledge of how things worked got in the way.
In the US if you are cleared to a point, you are cleared to that point via the route in that clearance. If that route is direct then you are cleared through whatever airspace lies directly between you and that point. If you are about to enter restricted airspace it is the controllers job to give you vectors around that airspace.
On the rare occasions that you might leave controlled airspace the controllers will provide flight following or tell you when or where to contact the next controller and the frequency but your clearance through that airspace still applies.
I've had to flush that idea from my mind and realise that you need a much better understanding of the limits of a clearance. I know when I receive my clearance out of Farnborough to Guernsey that I'm not really cleared through all the airspace along the route I've filed.
Sometimes it's hard to learn about the idiosyncrasies of a counties airspace when you don't know the questions to ask.
How many people who only fly in the US occasionally know what you can do with a clearance to operate VFR on top or what it means to cruise an altitude? Would you know you could ask for and receive a clearance for a contact approach and what that means?