You know, one funny thing that is not often pointed out about 'cockpit commonality' and something which you see in the Standard Operating Procedures books for various Airbus models quite a lot, is a warning about remembering which one you are actually flying!
There have been instances of pilots forgetting which Airbus they are in because the cockpits all look so similar, and over-rotating it on take-off - causing a tail strike - because they thought they were in one of the smaller models with a shorter fuselage!
Joking aside, this is actually a fairly serious worry, since a tail strike can seriously damage the aircraft's rear pressure bulkhead, and in fact was the cause of the loss of a JAL Boeing 747, when a repair to the rear pressure bulkhead (following a tail strike some years earlier) failed and blew most of the horizontal stabiliser off. The loss of control eventually causing the aircraft to crash, but not before the passengers had spent a horrifying amount of time knowing what a stuggle the guys up front were having, many of the paseengers writing farewell letters to their families. As far as I recall, there was only one survivor in this accident (might be wrong about that bit though).
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