Needing to brief in the van does not mean you are a professional. I have not felt pressed for time since I was at a regional trying to figure out how to get some food during a 25-minute turn. At a major airline, there is no need to rush. We get to the airport an hour or more before the flight. It takes me 10 minutes to review the release and 10 minutes to do my flows/load the flight plan. Add in another 15 minutes for food/coffee and 5 minutes talking to the gate agent and FAs, that leaves 20 minutes to review an MEL or talk to the dispatcher about fuel, weather, or alternates. I can't think of any MEL that required more than a few minutes of my attention.

The kind of pilots that want to talk about the flight before they get to the airplane always seem to be under a false time constraint. Maybe it's a carryover from regionals or previous cultures where flight crews rushed.