There are many ways of accomplishing a checklist, but perhaps the most common mistake, as the saying goes, is using it as a "do" list. Merely because something has been accomplished IAW the checklist doesn't mean it's been done, and it should be individually verified and checked anyway.
Landing gear and flaps should always be two calls...each pilot should be making the call. If it's a single pilot cockpit, then that pilot needs to keep making the call.
Even when flying single pilot, I still do the checklist out loud, and I still do it as though someone where there with me. I do it challenge and response...I read the challenge, verify that it's done, and respond verbally. I find that this exercise helps ensure that I'm really it, vs. skipping down the checklist. In a single pilot airplane that has a CVR, I also find it ensures I'm on record as having at least performed the checklist.
I know a crew that destroyed a P2V after landing. They had a gear emergency, and utilized some of the best minds in the industry, some of the most knowledgeable people on the planet with respect to that airplane, to resolve it in flight. They did everything, and then some, and determined that the gear was down, and landed. A crew drove onto the runway, did a visual inspection, followed them to the ramp. No problems at all. On shut down, the left main gear retracted back into the nacelle, the left prop hit the ground, the radome was crushed, and the fuselage broken in half. Part of the prop nearly decapitated the assistant director of maintenance, who was standing nearby.
With all those minds involved, all the manuals, all the paperwork, all the references available to the flight crew and the ground crew...the one thing they all missed was the checklist item that required them to pin the gear after landing, before engine shutdown. As the hydraulic pressure bled off and could no longer hold the gear, it slowly retracted, and the aircraft was destroyed. Nobody got hurt...but one little checklist item would have made all the difference.
Just like every accident or incident...usually just one little weak link in the chain.
For the want of a nail, a horseshoe was lost. For the want of a horseshoe, a horse was lost. For the want of a horse, a rider was lost. For the want of a rider, a battle was lost. For the want of a battle, a war was lost. For the want of a war, a nation was lost, and all for the want of a horse shoe nail.
Little things, big effects.