In discussions in the past where cost-saving has driven more training from the real aircraft to the sim, I have always opposed the idea that pure handling skills should be taught in the sim.
I agree with you, Crab. The value of a sim is NOT in the handling skills, it's in the procedures and systems training. And, for multi-crewed aircraft, the interaction between pilots in an emergency. Until you've had the fire light come on during a night takeoff from the ship, you don't know how you'll really react and, more importantly, you don't know how the other pilot will react to your actions and words. The real learning occurs during the debrief when you get a chance to watch how you reacted, listen to what you said, and participate in a professional discussion of how the emergency could have been handled better.
I attended annual sim training for more than 25 years. During that time, the flight dynamics and visual systems improved dramatically, but never reached the level of flying in the real aircraft. But the quality of the training improved continuously as we incorporated lessons from fleet experience into our annual course. You can't beat the value of that! Lives were saved through exposure to scenarios that had killed our colleagues...