dba:
Interesting point there.
It seems to me that each airfield has its own interesting features, be they geographic, navaids, routing, approaches, runway/taxiway, NOTAM that day, or ATC sequencing habits. Whatever. As a professional, I'd think that if one's destination is deemed by one's company (or by one's own experience) to be a difficult one, that becomes a briefing item, and a prep item. In a good organization, it's added to the company "smart book" for the best ways to deal with all the odd ins and outs of a given destination or mission.
A few pages back, one of the pilots calls that approach the "threat briefing." I'd say he was on the mark. In a generic sense, it's part of the risk management feature of any mission briefing.
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get this group of passengers to their destination safely."
Those complaining about SFO being "stupid" strike me as stupid: one needs to brief the flight for what is, not for what one wishes it were.
It's why we brief and plan ... to reduce the number of things that can surprise us or go wrong during the flight.
FBW or not
Short or long haul
IFR or VFR
Pax or Cargo
domestic or international
Brief the flight, prepare the flight, and address risks to the flight, in order to get the most out of the flight and to stack the odds in favor of the flight coming off as "routine" regardless of how much effort it takes to make it look that easy.
From the AF 447 CVR, there was an discussion between the captain and one of his FOs on the temp not being as forecast at altitude, hence the scheduled climb to FL 390 not possible as planned ... a perfect example of how valuable the planning process is to executing the flight as one encounters it, not as one wished it were. (That the two FO's later made fatal mistakes in flying is another matter)