Protest too much
Those that advocate routine departures from SOPs are protesting too much. One of our prime directives is to follow SOPs and we should not normally deviate without a safety related reason. Good airmanship will indicate when this will happen and whenever possible, the F/O needs to at least somehow indicate his agreement. Habitual SOP deviation without good reason and without the agreement of the F/O, then Huston, we have a problem!
There may be very minor deviations that are of little consequence. I always wore headset when required by SOP. As F/O, I did not push the captain to do the same. As captain, it soon became obvious to my F/Os that headsets, like other SOPs, were required. I think they liked the idea that SOPs were a routine part of how we operated.
I admit to a couple of habitual infractions, but they were based on airmanship considerations and with F/O agreement. Often I carried more fuel, and on really long taxys, I might have sometimes exceeded the maximum taxy speed for brake temp reasons.