> Yes, assuming that the previous crew left you a 'perfect and ready to fly plane' is one hell of an assumption to make. With tiny little pieces to collect if it ends up being wrong.

This is very bizarre. I once had a morning flight out of Denver (not too long ago, August 2008?) and talking to people there apparently the plane had an electronics malfunction of some sort. They said they would fly us out as soon as the plane was ready but about ten hours later, they gave up and flew us out on a plane with a different airline (which I assume was not free for them, I doubt American Airlines would fly a plane for free for United). Point is the initial problem, at least what they told us, was some lights failed to turn on but they refused to fly. I thought flight crew were very risk averse but clearly not everyone.