The issue of the "early dump" has been a long standing one in the private IFR community and AFAICT it went on for many years.
People would get dumped at DVR, when going to say Cranfield, and have to hack along at 2400ft, often in IMC, icing in the winter, etc.
One can understand dumping somebody at say DVR when going to Shoreham, but that's also bad if you are trying to stay above bad wx and don't want to descend till late. Or you are coming over the water and want to stay as high as possible.
It would totally spook a foreign pilot who simply filed "IFR", expecting "UK IFR" to be like IFR anywhere else, and who would not realise that a handover to "London 124.6" meant his IFR clearance has been terminated, his flight plan thrown away (in effect, and it will vanish for real from Eurocontrol ~30 mins later) and now he needs to dig out his VFR charts (what VFR charts - I am an IFR flight
) to continue.
The indications however are that this has much improved, which is great.
It has also been improved in France, where Paris Control now handle traffic down to FL100 (or maybe even lower) whereas previously it was FL120+. In French ATC, only Paris Control can
AFAIK hand over to London Control, so if you wanted your Eurocontrol flight plan and IFR clearance to continue into the UK, you had to leave French airspace at/above FL120 (i.e. on oxygen). Now one can fly at FL100. But you will still get dumped onto 124.6 if you filed for say FL080.