How do you know you have an excellent track record--
By examining my past flying record.
and as for a flawless safety record, what difference does that make?
Let me turn the question around and ask you one.
The next time you get in an airplane to fly somewhere as a passenger will it make any difference to you if the pilot flying you has over half a century of safe flying without wrecking anything, or a pilot who has a long history of accidents?
DFC-have to say you are the only person who seems like an instructor on here!
Fortunately there are others who are flight instructors on this forum flythisway, in fact I received my first instructors rating in 1958.
You must bear in mind that different instructors present information in different manners......I tend not to be an acronym slave and prefer to use logic and observation as a means of ensuring I am making the correct decisions and carrying out the correct actions at a given time.
Note:
I am not saying that following proper check lists is not necessary, what I am saying is check lists should reflect the aircraft POH / AFM and not be cluttered up with unnecessary actions such as checking the gear is down on a fixed gear aircraft......that to my way of thinking is poor airmanship.