Casper, I agree whole heartedly with your first paragraph. You should be able to clear someone for the procedural ILS and expect them to fly via all the points on the procedure and intercept the ILS whilst meeting all the speed and height restrictions. If they don't do that without specific clearance to do otherwise then they're doing it wrong.
In your second paragraph you say we should know what the AIP says. We don't carry AIPs, we carry Navtech charts that translate them for us in an easily digested format. They don't say "or as directed by ATC" but simply have the restriction of 8000' at TD and 4500' at LIMES. In fact, the AIP doesn't even state "or as directed" for the LIMES restriction.
You could probably expect most pilots of Hong Kong carriers to delete the 8000' restriction but not foreign based carriers. Personally I leave the LIMES restriction in. It's a not below so it won't fly me down below profile, it keeps the speed in the box and it's not a million miles away from where I want to be anyway.