........... to only lower the gear when the intention is to land.
Precisely. I have experienced exactly that situation. Approaching an airport., all normal at that stage, the Approach Checks were commanded which at that stage included the first stage of flap extension, but although that happened the associated leading edge flaps did not extend. The co-pilot was handling so I told him to continue with the approach, which included intercepting the final approach path whilst the F/Eng. and self went through checks to ascertain the L/edge problem. Although we were getting closer to the airfield I did not extend the gear and was prepared to go around if necessary. To have extended the gear would have been contrary to the normal check list sequence, for a start the Landing Check, which included the gear, had not been asked for as we had not completed all the checks prior to the Landing Check, and to have lowered the gear would have meant carrying out a check list item -t he gear - out of sequence, with the possibility of missing something important that might have been necessary prior to gear extension, e.g. do not interrupt the check list sequence, or if you have for some reason, then start again at the beginning. QED.