I was wrong. BNC has these:
1 AGAINST ALL EXPECTATIONS 8
2 AGAINST ALL EXPECTATION 2
3 AGAINST OVER-OPTIMISTIC EXPECTATIONS 2
4 AGAINST THESE EXPECTATIONS 1
5 AGAINST THE EXPECTATIONS 1
6 AGAINST REASONABLE EXPECTATION 1
7 AGAINST RATIONAL EXPECTATIONS 1
8 AGAINST PREVIOUS EXPECTATIONS 1
9 AGAINST MANY EXPECTATIONS 1
10 AGAINST CULTURAL EXPECTATIONS 1
11 AGAINST AN EXPECTATION 1
TOTAL 20
But though BNC has
no 'contrary to [all] expectation/s'
COCA has quite a few:
1 CONTRARY TO EXPECTATIONS 77
2 CONTRARY TO EXPECTATION 17
TOTAL 94
and fewer for 'against' (though with many more options):
1 AGAINST ALL EXPECTATIONS 8
2 AGAINST THE EXPECTATIONS 5
3 AGAINST UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS 4
4 AGAINST THE EXPECTATION 3
5 AGAINST ALL EXPECTATION 3
6 AGAINST ANY EXPECTATION 2
7 AGAINST LOW EXPECTATIONS 2
8 AGAINST EXAGGERATED EXPECTATIONS 2
9 AGAINST THESE EXPECTATIONS 1
10 AGAINST COUNTERVAILING EXPECTATIONS 1
11 AGAINST STEREOTYPICAL EXPECTATIONS 1
12 AGAINST SOCIETAL EXPECTATIONS 1
13 AGAINST RHYTHMIC EXPECTATIONS 1
14 AGAINST REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS 1
15 AGAINST RADICAL EXPECTATION 1
16 AGAINST NORMAL EXPECTATIONS 1
17 AGAINST HIGH EXPECTATIONS 1
18 AGAINST HAVING EXPECTATIONS 1
19 AGAINST FALSE EXPECTATIONS 1
20 AGAINST AN EXPECTATION 1
TOTAL 41
(This is twice many as in BNC, but in a much bigger corpus. - so it's proportionally less common.)
Which seems to suggest that my usage shows American tendencies in this respect. My 19/20 years' stint working for DEC/Compaq/HP may explain this (and a childhood exposed to the film business: my parents met through Technicolor). This is probably more information than anyone needs... ;-)
b