albertofdz, you have said, amongst other things;
As long as the airplane crosses the threshold at the CORRECT speed and path and with an APPROPRIATE power setting, then we can all affirm that the flight has been conducted in a safe manner. More so, plenty of fuel can be saved in these ever so difficult times.
Also,
SOPS should be known by heart and followed NEARLY at all times, this includes bad weather, whenever we feel tired etc etc; But lets not obsese, visual approaches are healthy, fuel efficient, they teach you how to fly the airplane in nearly any scenario and excuse me, but they are also extremely fun and fulfilling
These are my conclusions: Bad weather, tired, heavy traffic = SOPS
Good weather, relaxed, traffic permitting = extend flaps and gear later than normal, fly a visual approach when possible, enjoy your job because you have a damn good one!
albertofdz, your views, and a few other misguided posters on here, on SOPs are about twenty-five years out of date. You seem to have a pick and mix attitude which many learned people have been trying to prevent for many years now. SOPs have been developed and tuned after many millions of flights to be where they are now.
As a flight safety tool they are probably one of the most significant additions the industry has evolved, along with such things as ILS/Autoland, EGPWS and TCAS, amongst others.
Crossing the threshold with the aircraft fully configured with the power at an appropriate setting at the correct height and speed is what we all aim to achieve. You seem to be of the misguided impression that selecting gear down at 3 miles, landing flap at 2 miles and power on at 1 mile, achieving your criteria, is so very slick but it is a recipe for disaster. If you don't believe me then simply go back over all the data from the last 25 years that led companies to implement their current SOPs.
There are many thousands of good reasons why SOPs insist, INSIST, that you must be fully configured and stable at 1000' in IMC and at 500' in VMC. They are the bodies of the unfortunate victims of all the accidents that have occurred because aircraft were not in the correct configuration and stable at these heights on many hundreds of previous approaches. There must never be any leeway in the interpretation of these SOPs, never, for the simple reason that no one of us is more informed or better able to fly than any of the people who wrote these procedures on the back of all these deaths.
Fly the SOPs or buy your own aircraft, simple, no deviations, not NEARLY all the time, always. Every approach, every time. Stable at 1000' IMC, 500' VMC or you MUST Go around.
End of story.
Anything else is dangerous.
Dangerous.