Nothing to do with gear up arrivals, but a good illustration of the absurdity of the expanding checklist culture in GA these days. At a local airport a chap turned up with his "new and improved checklist" for a single engine, fixed gear fixed pitch prop four seat aircraft, a nice little cross country toy with a decent cruising speed and beautifully equipped office. To the amazement of those in the building,{and amusement I might add} it was more like a book then an aircraft checklist , so buddy goes out to the aircraft, its Winter and bloody cool out side, after spending an unusual amount of time sitting in the aircraft he finally got it started and proceeded to taxi, the problem being that he failed to remove the engine Winter cover, fortunately this minor omission was brought to his attention by a "Rampy" but not before the engine cover was reduced to "shop rags" and the prop had a highly polished hub! On his return to the building someone asked him if he was going to add "remove engine and wing covers "to the checklist, the sarcasm was I'm afraid wasted on him! Not gear related, but an illustration of the written checklist for normal operations taking precedence over common sense.