As it should be! No seat belts until fuelling completed, pairs of doors guarded by the crew at all times, engineers keeping tabs on the plane, flight attendant close access to evacuation alarm. Sounds like they were doing their job well and able to handle any problems until the pilots turned up. Probably saved a significant delay....
Yes, and as I pointed out earlier on this thread, this was done on a regular basis with no problems at all both here in Australia and right throughout the World with Australian registered Aircraft.
Obviously some Countries/Airlines must have different ways of doing it.