This is a topic that a large amount of effort is quite rightly put into during training but one which seems to be acted upon with the least true vigour by most of us!
At the PFA rally most years there is a CAA sponsored Pre-Flight Competition. An aircraft (it has been a helicopeter in previous years) is 'rigged' with usually around 10 mostly obvious faults. Competitors are then given a max. of 30 mins to do their pre-flight inspection.
What is really revealing is that at the end of the rally the results are published and even though most participants spend probably 6 - 10 times longer looking at this aircraft for faults that they know are there but they are not ultimately going to stake their life on as compared to the time spent on an aircraft that they are going to rely on in the near future, very, very few find over 75% of the faults and most only find less than 50%!!!!
What is possibly more worrying is that the groups with the poorer record are generally the commercial pilots - perhaps it's that bits don't drop off the sophisticated aircraft
I don't know if the CAA publish generally the comp. results, but I'm sure that it would be an eye-opener for us all.