Most exasperating is the "Screw-Test" excuse for currently having a sloppy on-air presentation. The present thought of push-this, move-that, and sound happens is fine for those that live in the theoretical world, but the real world has a nasty habit of rearing it's ugly little head at the worst possible times. Dead-Air = Stupid to many...
One of the Director of Studio Engineering's many jobs was to see that each person that engineered or comboed a show was capable if bridging the chasam between worlds at a moments notice......
Not only was the station's managment caring of the technical quality of the on-air signal, but the staff engineers were quite demanding on themselves. They would expect, or even demand, an extreamly tough air-engineering test, just to prove to themselves, that whatever happened, with the possible exception of multiple lightning strikes to the transmitter, air-quality would be maintained. This ment that anything in the audio chain could fail, up to the Studio-Transmitter Link, and they would understand the problem and therefore be capable of remedying it, probably before a person from either adjoining studio could come in to ask what was wrong. That was the standard engineering test.
Pride, and knowing that you were going to be part of a top-notch organization also inspired the creation of a slightly different test. Same test as before, except this time the studio engineer would be performing under the the additional self-induced stress of an almost-bursting bladder :) No Lie!