The trend towards the "cure-all dogmatic fundamentalism" towards company procedures, isn't just to be found at EK; I think most large Western airlines are of the thinking that, provided they can legislate/automate a procedure for every conceivable scenario, then there cannot possibly be an accident, no matter how inexperienced/low paid/basically educated/low aptitude/tired/low stick skills the crews are.
Fact of the matter is, it is ineffective, and can often be counterproductive, where we have overwhelming layer upon layer of procedure, and when the particularly dim witted stumble into conflicting SOP minutiae, rather than acting and applying airmanship, they go into meltdown, and freeze.