mad_jock
Thanks for that, and I am grateful for the opportunity to reflect on the subject. I think that use of the "close flight plan" option could be a good thing for me as a controller....it immediately absolves me of any responsibility or accountability if the aircraft subsequently ends up in a tree or in the side of a hill somewhere....perhaps undiscovered for days or weeks. Obviously that is a ridiculous attitude to take.......and so I favour the general drift of the thread that there should be some responsible person or some kind of accountability trail to act as a safety stop in case of non arrival. Safety is what it is all about....it is what I'm about....it is what all my ATC colleagues are about; don't treat a flight plan as an unnecessary inconvenience to be cancelled prematurely.....make safe arrangements....make safety the top consideration.
Perhaps VFR flight plans are not rigorously processed...but they are available and do provide a starting point in case of [whatever]. From a simple flight plan, even if you are non-radio or never speak to anyone, a complete trace action with radar tracking can be retrieved literally within minutes should it be required; but if nobody is going to report an overdue aircraft we would never look.