But Centaurus, Centaurus... You can use all the bad examples that you want. None of these people got in harms way because they were using checklists in a single pilot airplane. They got in harms way, because they were using checklists in a single pilot airplane at the wrong time...
If you want to, I can come up with more examples, where people had incidents/accidents that could have been avoided had they had a checklist to cover for their less than perfect memory when performing "flow checks"...
Where IŽm at, youŽll also fail a flighttest if not using a checklist.
As somebody else said: We, who fly everyday, might do fine without written checklists, but many small single pilot aircraft, are flown by people who donŽt fly on a regular basis.. To indicate to them, that written checklists are not the safest way to go, is in my mind crazy..!
And yes, I was once an instructor as well, doing my 6 hours a day in Cessnas. Could do it all backwards in my sleep. But I like to think, that I helped more than one of my students staying out of trouble later on, by stressing the importance of having a written checklist, and using it, no matter what type of aircraft..