When it's very cold, the battery will often struggle so I keep the lights to a minimum on start.
Sometimes, I will skip checking the landing light during a pre flight to save the battery, and just get the thing running. Once you've got it going (talking PA28 here) you can see the ammeter jump when you turn any lights or pitot heat on, so can easily see if things are working or INOP.
Indeed, most PA28s only have one switch which gives both beacon and strobes, which does annoy some people. I've never had a problem standing near an aircraft with it's strobes going, so don't really see what the fuss is about, but I do keep these lights off on the ground as i know some people are sensitive to this.