[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Eric Coffey

Yup. Some days it's shoes off, laptops out. Some days it's shoes on, but laptops still out. Or, some days it's "Casual Flyday" and you are just waived through without any of the shoe/laptop hassles.
It would seem that it's totally at the discretion of the supervising agent on duty that day. Of course, avoiding those hassles and the long lines of unwashed masses is an option...for a price.

That's the difference between TSA Precheck and normal security. Likely you were in a non Precheck line, or got lucky and were upgraded to Precheck. Some airports don't have Precheck lines. It's really not that complicated, and Precheck is cheap considering the benefits.