If you NEED a written checklist to put the gear down, you NEED to be doing something else.
+1
If a pilot chooses to use a checklist, and the nature of the operation accommodates that, I don't feel the feed to be critical. But, it's a
check list - the pilot is using it to check that they have performed the required action, because they knew to do it. The checklist is not an instruction page - the flight manual, as a supplement to proper training is that.
EVERY landing I do in an RG aircraft will be preceded with my verbal statement - intentionally so another occupant of the aircraft can hear it - as to the landing gear position relative to the intended landing surface. If I do not do this, I will go around.
This is "configuration assurance". There is simply no excuse for a pilot not assuring the configuration of landing gear, fuel, engine and flaps. These are totally basic responsibilities of any competent pilot. It is the pilot's responsibility to maintain a routine, and break and distracting or non standard event, to assure that the aircraft is configured for the next phase of flight - this is a memory item for any aircraft type, operation or crew composition. If a pilot taxis in with the landing light or transponder still on, or the flaps down, I can live with this - metal won't be bent. A comment is warranted, to remind the pilot that they can do better, but an excuse might be accepted. Forgetting the primary things, or
depending upon a checklist to remember them, is not acceptable.