It does make you despair
Atlas, doesn`t it?
For the record, I later briefly flew Chieftains on a casual basis for the owner of my old Flying School and full rich mixture was
only selected after descent,
on downwind for the landing runway as part of the pre-landing checks.
I was taught this by the Owner right from the start, even when I did my CPL training in (deep breath, makes sign to ward off evil eye, throws salt over shoulder) a Seneca 1.
I still adhere to that rule.