As usual, the best contribution to this thread has come from PJ2, thank you sir for your eminently sensible and logical contributions on this and many other threads over the years.
Risk assessment is mandatory in most organisations that operate a Safety Management System nowadays whenever a new or changed procedure is introduced. Runway incursions are a fact of life, especially at busy airports so any procedure that helps to mitigate the risk should be identified. This can range from what my mob does - a simple reiteration of the taxy routing and a turn by turn commentary from the PF (who always taxies the a/c 411) on where he is going before he makes the turn, to relatively cheap RAAS from Honeywell et al which is available at very little cost.
This loss of SA by the BA crew could be due to any number of reasons - all of them human and all of them traps lying in wait for the rest of us - no matter that 411 appears to be immune to these! Identifying threats and preventing them turning into mistakes is at the very heart of Threat and Error Management. We are all humans and WILL make mistakes, nothing is surer. Being aware of the potential threats and enunciating them as a team - such as the FSF ALAR Risk Assessment Checklist for approach and landing is just one way of doing this. There are many others, all of them useful. What should not be acceptable in the modern world is the concept of nobody being prepared to speak up whenever he's not happy with something. Unfortunately is continues to happen due to experience and cultural reasons, especially in those parts of the world where authority is almost sacrosanct. Perhaps a factor in the A321 accident at Islamabad?
Our Ops Manual allows us to accept intersection departures but I will never intentionally leave runway behind me and I teach my student F/Os and Captains my reasons for this. While the RTOW figures may state that we have the performance for an intersection takeoff, how would you feel if, having performed one of these, something went wrong in the RTO case and you ended up with just the nosewheel in the grass? You're now facing a serious incident enquiry instead of a simple RTO had you used the full length! It may be a cliche but runway behind you is still of those three most useless things in aviation and that hasn't changed since the Wright Brothers.
The division of responsibilities on the flight deck will always be a source of argument among pilots. BA operates a particular type of monitored system that works perfectly well for them. In another existence, I used these procedures and they work very well and are particularly useful during an approach to minimums. There are many other SOPs that work equally well for their operators and I wouldn't have the arrogance to presume that my particular set is better than anyone else's. What is important is that the crew sticks exactly to whatever procedures they have in their company as they give a certain level of certainty to each pilot that he knows what to expect from the other. In this sense, there are probably no bad SOPs - just that some may be better thought out than others.
For 411: you are perfectly entitled to your view on the role of the F/O. However, I firmly believe that giving the F/O as musch authority as possible from the very beginning is the best way to go in the long run. Our 250hr F/Os start the engines, handle all comms with the ground engineer and taxy, takeoff and fly the aircraft from A to B perfectly safely. They do not have the arrogance to believe that they are in charge of the a/c but we give them the licence to make as many of the decisions as possible and if I'm not happy with a course of action I will (gently) query why he/she thinks he/she would do it his/her way and try to educate them on what I believe they may have missed. For 411's benefit, in the past 15 years my F/O has picked up my mistakes more often that I have picked up his! It is a two-man operation with the Captain as leader of the team but with input required and expected from the F/O - even if it happens to be wrong. It is how the Capt handles this kind of situation that will ultimately determine the lesson that the F/O learns from it. mY sincere thanks to all those Captains who over the years gently educated me to get to where I am today.