I'm all for SOPs but worried about the interpretation of it, a few years ago after being offered a short notice intersection departure (loosing around 500’ of a 12,000’ rwy) in an A330 at light weight, both knowing a NW747 was on short final, I(PNF) suggested TOGA in my best CRM and was surprised when he said “no” get a new RTOW which resulted in a late/low go around. Now I was a low hour F/O and agree experience counts for more every time I get it, and I put that down as more experience for me even though TOGA would have resulted in a non event (from previous experience).
Now the other day flying in the worst body clock time, I cocked it up well and good, now in a 747 classic working out my decent point I decided to multiply my height by 2 instead of 3 so sailed some 30+ miles past my descent point, and caught it passing my first “round” numbers, FL300, at which point the Captain started laughing and telling me how he’d done the exact same thing years ago as an F/O with another laughing Captain. It all worked out fine and was a lot of fun barrelling in at .86/360kts (SOPs .85/300kts) with the boards to regain the profile all the while talking about how some Captains wouldn't allow an operation like that intentionally.
So to my point, I’m afraid companies want strict SOPs to be followed rather than knowing/showing the performance of the A/C to get you back within SOPs whether intentionally or not.
I like to explore my envelope and love it when I fly with Captains who say go for your life, every mistake I make, I’ll either never make again or will know what to do.
Previouse experience asside I’d hate my current experience to be wholly within SOPs, so a good F/O may be the result of the Captains or company environment he’s been flying with/in.