There is the SOP and then there is airmanship and common sense. I remember having a captain who will be watching carefully how I will be doing the cockpit preparation and bugged me every 10 seconds cause I did not do exactly as per '' his interpretation of the FCOM procedure''. I try to do the preparation by the books but will you switch on the parking brakes during preliminary cockpit prep when your brakes are still very hot? Or turning on the fuel pumps when you have a 2 hours delay... A part from instructors doing a line check or training flight, people being picky about your way of doing the cockpit preparation have probably a lack of confidence or poor knowledge of the aircraft.