Genghis' flight sounds a lot like the sort of sortie profile that I am quite familiar with where you stooge around at low level and have all the frequencies for enroute radar providers in the event that the weather goes punk and you have to pull out of low level and continue along your route IMC at Safety Alt in receipt of a radar service until you can either get a vectored descent into VMC low level or until the cloud goes away.
At no point after a low level abort has any controller ever just dumped me out in the cold. Especially if you say that you've just pulled out of LL.
Clearly I have a lack of knowledge of Radar procedures as well as I was unaware that "traffic service imparts to the controller that you consider that you have sufficient visual reference to be able to operate on the "see-and-avoid" principle when traffic information is given". If I'm IMC under a traffic service and the controller gives me traffic info then I'd manoeuvre accordingly using the picture in my head or TCAS.
Fire away!