CAPT :
I agree with you about keeping approach briefings brief. The majority-I'll guess 99.9% - of pilots in 2 crew operations have the same training and the same expectations when doing approaches.
I fly both fixed and rotary. In the Fixed wing we do the approach briefing prior to decent approximately 75-80 NM miles back, in RW world its done usually at about 30 NM when in the terminal area.
It often happens in the FW world that when we're swithced over from Centre to Terminal they change the runway and then we have to rush the briefing and set up for the new runway. That always ticks me off.
212 Man: When over the OM/beacon. I call beacon crossing, beacon crossing altitude xxxx feet on glide slope or (ABV-BLO), check the flags on the HSI and report no flags.
It is also prudent to verify the localizer with the NDB track to preclude false loc capture. When using AP FD I don't arm the approach until within 8 degrees of the LOC track as displayed on the ADF.