Perhaps this tendency to ignore the POH, which seems pretty widespread in the UK partially accounts for the casual approach to aircraft loading, and the prevalence of weird UK flight training specific practices like going to carb air cold on final
I don't know, ignoring the POH seems pretty common everywhere to a greater or lesser extent.
I've had US instructors maintain that I should be flying final in a PA28 at 75knots with the carb heat on. I've also threatened to beat said US instructors over the head with said POH to illustrate the point
G