I certainly don't discount the importance of the AFM however I have had instruction by 2 extremely experienced Maule pilots that highlighted to me why certain practices are and are not in the AFM.
The two individuals are Ray Maule ie. "Mr Maule" the guy that builds the planes and another guy in Montana who does pipeline patrol , wildlife monitoring and missing people search's in the Glacier National park with his 2 Maules which he has thousands of hours on.
When flying with Ray he demonstrated a short field TO without bumping the flaps , a few months later I was flying with the guy in Montana who did bump the flaps . I said that Mr Maule did not do this during the flight demo , "Mr Montana" explained why Mr. Maule who builds , sells, trains on and holds the type certificate for the Maule does not do so. Specifically, if he taught students or published in the AFM that you get better TO performance from bumping the flaps (which you no doubt do) but this method involves removing your hand of the throttle, which is a danger in itself, and leaning down to the flap handle which restricts your forward visibility, if someone got hurt or killed while doing this the liability is not worth it for Maule, however if Mr Montana whose home field is 4000ft up in the mountains with his 160hp FP and with a hellacious density altitude he is more concerned with the 50ft oak at the end of a short strip than he is with lawyers.
So it's a double edged sword, you get better performance which in itself is safer, but it's not in the AFM for what i can only assume is liability reasons.
I have enclosed a link from the factory website for the AFM for my aircraft, if anybody can find ANY take off performance data whatsoever I would appreciate them pointing me to it.
http://www.mauleairinc.com/pdf/fligh.../mx_7_180a.pdf
Some advice, take it or leave it your choice, although from some of your comments you will probably ignore it.
I never ignore advice, however I do evaluate it,, Fly Safe