Bart, several points:-
Small operators can't get the sort of prices on fuel you quote. Therefore, the price is rather higher for Eastern than you appear to think.
If you budget a certain amount for anything in a tight operation, and a significant item (such as fuel) actually costs you 10% more, then you're in trouble. Or hasn't the idea of running to a budget ever occurred to you?
Dunno what turboprops you flew but an ATR the burn at ISA, FL 100 = 410 kg/eng/hr. At FL160 it's 359. Therefore on an hour's sector you will burn 102 kg more. Do that three times a day, seven times a week and the difference is 2,142 kg., or approx 2680 lt. At 15p per litre, that's over £400 more on your costs.
I don't particularly care how "I strike you", since you don't know me, but you still feel safe in making assumptions. Do you always make wild assumptions on the basis of no evidence at all? Because if so, your flying technique must be sort of interesting. For what it's worth, my priorities when flying are[list=1][*]Safety (after all, it should be everyone's priority)[*]Legality (I'd always prefer to be safe than legal)[*]Passenger comfort[*]Expeditious conclusion to the flight (Although occasionally there will have to be some trade-off with confort - let's face it, you're not going to sit in the hold for 2 hours waiting for things to calm down on a slightly turbulent approach)[*]Economy of operation (If I can save the company money, all other things being equal, by climbing to take advantage of better fuel burn, or descending to get out of a stonking headwind, I'll do it.)[/list=a]
Finally, I don't recall being "nasty" to ATC. I am well aware that they know a fair amount about the subject. So what? I know quite a bit about life in an ATC unit, but I'd never presume to tell them their job. If misconceptions occur, you think there's something wrong with correcting them?