Bill Daniels wrote:

There is nothing in the regulations that prohibits a clearance into Class A

The ICAO definition of class A is "IFR only". (Each country is free to
add some local rules to the standard airspace classification, though.)

utilizing "Flight Following" (US rough equivalent of 'Controlled VFR'),

I'm not American, but as far as I think to have understood, one of the
most common misunderstandings among US pilots is that "flight following"
means "controlled flight", while it is just a plain uncontrolled flight
with some advisories.

Stefan