I do get that. I think there are a wide range of recruiters, in my particular instance I really I had to drive the process and be persistent in ensuring things got done. I have no problem with that, my recruiter has plenty of candidates and priorities and I'm no more important than any of them, I'm happy to put in the effort to make sure my application remains front of mind. The problem is, when you don't know what the process is, you don't know if you're being annoying because something just takes time, or if you're being persistent because something got dropped somewhere.
Good example, I filled in my MEPS paperwork and sent it over to my recruiter. Three weeks later I hadn't heard anything back and reached out for an update. Found out later that it had never been forwarded to MEPS until I followed up. If I had known at the time (which I found on a document or manual later) that MEPS pre-screen sign off is supposed to take 2-3 days for someone with no medical issues, I probably would have followed up a week later because I would have known probably something wasn't right, instead of waiting three weeks because I thought I would be annoying the recruiter by not waiting for a response.
As a civilian applicant, I actually like the fact that everything is documented somewhere - if you have a question you just need to figure out where to look and it can often be answered self-service.