Pretty much every long-haul flight, on EVERY airline I've tried, either makes an announcement or individually asks passengers to close window shades. The new aircraft (Dreamliner, I believe) will have options for photochromatic "shades" on the windows which are centrally controlled by the cabin crew. I'm not looking forward to that at all. And I love seeing scenery on a clear dayflight, especially going over India/Himalayas or the North Pole.

The one that really gets me is the "please put your seat up for meal service." I've had flight attendants forcibly push my seat up when I was sleeping and not taking the meal. If your airline has packed seats so tightly that the tray table is unusable in a normal seat configuration (recline is a standard feature of the seat, right?) then you have obviously either allowed too much recline, or put seats too close together @:-)