Courtney / MOCS / JAJ
The " hold short " clearance is used a lot in the USA and in Europe ( excluding the UK ) and the reason is that it leaves the controller and any other interested party that you intend to hold short of a point with the minimum of radio time.
Conformation might be nessesary if there is any doubt but usually there is no doubt. At places like Gatwick you are just cleared by ground to a hold and told to listen out on the tower frequency no conformation is required when switching to tower.
As I have said I think that the number of times things are confirmed on military airfields reflects the amount of traffic and the time avalable, with the level of radio traffic at some of the more congested airports I have visited the multipule readbackd would result in the operation grinding to a halt.
Please don't see this as a critsisum of individual RAF controllers who I have the greatest of respect for, it is just a view of the system from a standpoint outside of the military.