Seems to me that much of the brevity and clarity was lost in some military R/T over the last decade. Was it due to the alignment with CAP?
No. Much of the gash, ambiguous, non-standard nonsense was binned. Some of which was the result of individual instructor mannerisms - one of whom I had to remind that landing
clearance had to be acknowledged as such, not just by 2 clicks on the microphone or saying "Roger"! Students just adopted their QFIs' style and there was little, if any, formal RT instruction. Even ATSOCAS was still a complete mystery to many military pilots, despite the fact that it had been in existence for many years. Back in Hunter days, I was once told "Don't talk to air traffickers unless you have to - they'll just cost you fuel!"....
As minority airspace users, the military has finally been brought into line with the rest of the UK, except, quite reasonably, where specific military requirements exist. CAP 413 isn't exactly a riveting read, but it does at least give the correct, standard phraseology!
"Gear down" became standard as a final call, due to the variety of indications in military aircraft. For example, bona jets had 4 greens, F-4s had 3 wheel icons. But even after 'gear down' had been in for years, some Hercules co-piglets were still calling "Finals, gear checked".... One exasperated Local Controller at Brize eventually became so fed up with non-standard JATE-cowboy R/T that he advised that landing clearance would not be given until the C-130 crew confirmed that their landing gear was indeed DOWN!