I am aware you have great knowledge of terps and are not employed by the FAA. My point all along is that the practical aspects of flying should not be overlooked when reviewing or flying an IAP. At it's root it's the old field dependent/field independent thinking thing. It seems to me that there are many potential problems and the pilot must remain aware enough to solve the problems regardless of the rules of IAP design. For routine operations the designs should be sufficient to the point that there are few concerns for routine flight for a proficient pilot/crew. When things aren't routine it helps to have thought about what can be done ahead of time. Obviously it's not always necessary to plan for a problem but just like engine out and partial panel training we should be training for lost coms or lost navaids or even bad instruction from ATC. Of course you airline guys get more and better training than us spam can guys so the need might not be as apparent.
All that said, maybe Dave and I are just the self-reliant types who looks at things and say "I can figure a way to..."
It wasn't all airline training for me. I had lots of light airplane time. That is where I came from when I hired on to the airline. I continued to be active in GA for my first ten years on the airline. Put through a couple more instrument students and a couple of multi ratings during that time.
What seems fussy to some pilots about notes and limitations on approach charts is, in fact, sometimes fussy. Nonetheless, all the notes, altitudes, and courses are regulatory, not advisory. And, most controllers know little to nothing about those notes.
An example of ludicrous is the fairly recent limitation that an airway cannot join an RNAV approach at greater than a 90 degree course change. But, if it is a ground-based procedure the course change can (as always has been) as much as 120 degrees. Yet, most of the folks I work with these days use LNAV to transition onto any approach procedure. Up to 120 degrees is okay for an ILS but not for an RNAV approach. Yet, the same RNAV equipment is flying both transitions. An example of this are the poorly designed RNAV Runway 30 procedure at Las Cruces, New Mexico. They could have made a HILPT fit on that procedure, but they took the lazy way out, then realized they would have to prohibit arrival from the west. So, rather than fixing it correctly they slapped an arrival hold on the procedure, which neither pilots nor controllers understand. Lazy, lazy design by federal employees, some of who are quite indifferent. They fill in the squares and the computer makes sure the TERPs protected airspace is there.
When I started in this business the FAA designers were far more involved. They had to be because there was no design computer. They pasted paper 1:24,000 quad charts together for drafting of the intermediate and final approach segments. Lots of those designers prior to 1990, or so, were pilots. That is long since gone.