As I'm still flying on a 4 man flight deck, I still have the luxury of running checklists with one other person dedicated to challenge and response. As an instructor/checker for the last 20 years, I agree wholeheartedly with the recurrent comments above. The debrief remarks from post #1 seem to come from a relatively new examiner, and perhaps are more indicative of his inexperience than anything else. I know that it took a few years before I became more than 'technically' competent as an instructor, as my own experience/airmanship/maturity grew. As a military man, (who else has aircraft old enough for a 4 man flight deck....), we have had a good central training system for many years now (although budget restraints now limit the number of coloured pens for diagrams..), but perhaps more importantly we have had a wealth of experience to draw upon for our instructor cadre. And that experience was frequently accompanied by time on different types and roles. My perception is that the appointment of TREs etc in many companies often has a political input as well as professional, but I stand by to be corrected!