He should have listed the airspace by name.. did he? A Restricted area or
MOA?

He cannot clear non participating IFR aircraft through an active MOA. Non
Participating means that you are not part of those that are reserving the
MOA.

I'm surprised he offered traffic advisories while you were in the MOA.
Perhaps he knew that those reserving it were not there yet, but it had "gone
hot" and he could not sued it for IFR traffic.

Maybe he did not offer lower because he already had enough traffic ducking
under the MOA.
BT

"Mike Granby" wrote in message
...

Near Seymour Johnson, so I did consider that it was the MOA north of
there, but then why wouldn't he offer me a descent to 6000 instead to
go under it, since I was only at 8000. (I've flown this route several
times in the last few months, including in the week, and never had
this issue before, but I've typically been at 6000, so the MOA does
make sense.)