Hey Old Smokey,
A normal pedantic doesn't enter the tunnel, because he/she knows what his/her capabilities are and how far he can go with his attention for, lets say, extra detail. I think that is very good. Although I would prefer to stop using the word pedantic and change it to 'a pilot with eye for detail'. Of course every pilot must have this, some just go a little bit further.
The initiator of this thread described 'idiotic pedantics'. That is a pilot, in this case a captain, who uses pedantry as a weapon. This can have several reasons. The most anoying one is to cover up their own weak capabilities. As soon something is different from normal, problems arise.