I'm all for the divvying up the work approach. We sold CRM to the single seat community by considering your flight members (2-3 others in some cases), your duty officer (SOF in the AF maybe), and even ATC as your *help* in duties and certainly during emergencies.

It does seem odd to me to hand-off the controls though. When I did fly with other instructors (with controls in the back), or the FEW times I actually flew a two-seater with a WSO in the back, I would be more inclined to have the crew member not flying brief the approach to me. Of course I have already looked it over and I would have the approach open myself, but the brief (and the backup) would be performed by the crew member not flying, and the change of controls seems unnecessary.
Concerning the pilot backing himself up on the approach plates; I know of a situation (wx divert, low on gas, a hydraulic emergency (loss of brakes), a few other problems and things got very hectic) where the backseater briefed the approach but misread a symbol for displaced threshold as an arresting gear symbol and ended up running off the runway when they tried to take a trap. If I remember right the pilot never took a look at the approach plate or airfield diagram.

As far as learning to do things differently - I'm flexible It will take more getting use to having other people's hands on the throttle or reaching ACROSS my hands/arms to accuate switches (as I saw in some video when the PNF reached across the PF's hand/arm to raise the gear handle or seeing a flight engineer working the throttles). This will take some chair flying to work these flows out!

USMCFLYR