Despite the Hudson event being one of only two controlled, intentional airline jet ditchings ever
AFAIK there have been scores if not hundreds of overruns/excursions into water. A urprising number of airfields have runways that project into water at one or both ends. Life jackets are thus far more useful than most people imagine.
Isn't that the salient point that most ditchings these days are unpremeditated, ie runway overuns etc?
Traditional ditching drills come from the days when large piston engine aircraft were halfway across an ocean and were unable to maintain height due engine failure/shutdowns and then had around 30 minutes to prepare the cabin and plan for some sort of controlled ditching. It was probably a bit before my time but I believe the ocean stations vessels located in the Atlantic could lay a flarepath on the sea within 20 minutes or so. I also believe one of the findings of the Hudson report was that there needed to be an abbreviated ditching drill for unpremeditated ditchings which just covered the essentials.
Whilst practice in a simulator may be useful I doubt modern visual systems can truly represent a swell on the ocean.
As regards lifejackets as a passenger I'd still like to have one just in case!