Velocity173 - Not to belabor the point, but I asked and she specifically told me NOT to fly the HILPT and to expect vectors. How does that factor in to what I did?
In my view, it really doesn't.
There is no RIGHT answer as to what you are supposed to do when ATC doesn't give you proper control instructions.
You were not receiving vectors to final, you were direct to the fix on the approach. Unless you had reason to believe that she intended to take you through final, I wouldn't fly through final. On vectors, I would.
It would be very unusual to do a HILPT in a terminal radar environment. Aircraft are vectored in-trail to join the final approach. A HILPT would disrupt the flow. ATC would have to leave a large gap between you and the airplane that is following you in order to allow for the HILPT.
If you are unable to ask, do what ATC was most likely expecting to have you do. In this case, she was likely planning to give you a turn, prior to the fix, to join final but she never did. Your advanced RNAV will make the turn to final just fine treating the fix as a fly-by waypoint, which it is. The result will be similar to what the vector to final would have been.
If she doesn't like that, she can give you a new heading and new vectors to re-join final.
If the weather is such as the approach will be required inside of the FAF then fly the final at your last assigned altitude and ask for new vectors as you can't complete the approach from the angle at which you joined.
Normally, ATC will ignore aircraft farther out while sorting out the aircraft that are closer in, i.e. joining final. As workload permits, they'll work their way back to the aircraft father out. It is unusual for them to forget someone joining the FAC without further clearance. ATC can't complain when it was their lack of appropriate control instructions which left you without a clear course to fly.
