As a pilot it would be difficult to tell WHY you've been given track shortening, whether you've asked for it or not. Controllers may use an aircraft in reasonable proximity or a restricted area you didn't know about to approve or initiate track shortening prior to you recieving any restriction in your clearance. Others may just be doing it coz it feels good to pass on possible effieciencies, in accordance or not with letters from management.
This instruction has not been mandated in Melbourne.
Roger is certainly no rubber-stamping career bureaucrat. If you don't know the bloke you should keep your red-eyed foamy-mouthed rantings about him to yourself BIK.
The tricks about giving direct tracking:
The confliction you cause may be two sectors away, and that sector may be working flat out when it happens. You have no way of knowing this.
When the sh*t hits the fan it is easier to spot conflicts (groundhog day effect), apply separation (rule-of-thumb principle) and recognise where coordination is required to other sectors (r-o-t again). You make yourself busy by giving away the world you start to miss things when everybody in the sector hears an ELT.
Just the request from the releasing or next sector for direct tracking on one of your aircraft can be a significant distraction when you are working at a peak (even a momentary peak). Particularly irksome if the request is just because he/she is bored.
Even if you asked a sector about a particular flight, if the effects of the tracking apply for more than 30min or so he/she will have no comprehensive idea what aircraft may conflict or what the workload will be by then. He/she has no real basis to approve the request in a lot of cases.