I disagree. It perhaps started as someone's preference, but the fact that it got so widely known and shared made it something more. Same goes for the Joel Test.

I disagree. It perhaps started as someone's preference, but the fact that it got so widely known and shared made it something more. Same goes for the Joel Test. And it's not about cargo-culting, it's value lies mostly in having a set of things you can show your company: "this is industry standard, we're far from there and should work on that". Not everything in these lists needs to be done that way. But they're still nice pointers for where to move towards (or beyond).