Full marks to you Speedbird for your level headed reply. Now to clarify my view on checklists as a policy, and then I won't bore people any more. It has been my personal experience with ab-initio students that if they are given (or purchase)a checklist to operate the aircraft, then more often and not they will thumb down the list line by line in order to find out what to do next. This is not the most efficient way to go. Because, inexorably the student will now always rely on this checklist as a crutch.
Faced without a checklist that has suddenly blown out the door, the student stumbles nervously desperately trying to remember what item constituted line No 7 on the approach checks. Remember, this is all hypothetical.
If he had been taught to use his checklist as a confirmation of drills already completed, then he would have gained self reliance and confident in the knowledge that he knew all the right drills in the first place. This is how the game is played in the big jets. Do the drills by visual scan and action, then haul out the company checklist from wherever it is stowed in the cockpit, and read it.
If flying schools insisted that their checklists were executed that way, ie scan then confirm afterwards, then the printed checklist becomes an aid - not a teacher. A printed checklist can never cover every single item that may come under the term "airmanship". It is patently ludicrous to have such checklist items as check for wrinkles under the fuselage for evidence of a previous heavy landing. Or Wiggle the wings up and down to check for water that may have settled between spars in the fuel tanks. Total reliance on a written list for a walk-around inspection will ensure that those items above, and similar gems of wisdom, will not be checked. A good instructor will brief you on the nasty little things to be found during a walk around - which may not be specifically written down. That, then is the insidious danger to a student who has been brought up on a strict checklist diet.
While my personal preference is that I do not advocate written checklists in small training aircraft - for the reasons explained ad nauseum previously - I can understand that there are opposing points of view. That's life.