Some thoughts, if I may be indulged a tad.
The instructor had limited experience in multi-engine aeroplanes with retractable landing gear and only one short flight in the Angel 44 aircraft several years earlier.
However, that doesn't always apply. The Camden Duchess mishap instructor was at the other end of the experience spectrum - military, GA, corporate, airline experience. Both Centaurus and I knew him well and I had done several GA renewals with him in the past. Experience doesn't count for all that much if/when you stick your neck out too far once too often and put yourself in an unwinnable situation ....
I have complete confidence that until the day I die, there will continue to be more GA deaths in Australia from engine failure training than from actual engine failures.
A predictable consequence of a lack of technical knowledge. One of my increasing concerns, over the past several decades, has been the active reduction in operator/regulator interest/emphasis on crew technical knowledge. There is no need for the line pilot to become a design or flight test engineer but a very healthy level of technical knowledge usually helps us to keep our noses clean whilst we enjoy our careers.
Your examiner/instructor/trainer should include in their brief ‘engine failures will not be simulated below XX AGL’ If they don’t brief it, ask them about it before takeoff.
Or, even, tell them rather than ask. After a few unnecessary frights as a sprog, it became a standard briefing point on endorsements/renewals (unless I knew the instructor/testing officer well enough to know that he would not do so) that any failure below (my choice of a nominated height) would result in my closing both throttles and landing more or less ahead - including my initial Class One issue with a well-known DCA examiner many years ago. Never had any problems as none ever saw it necessary to test my resolve on the point.
Another anecdote comes to mind: A close, and very experienced, colleague, post 89, decided that he should renew a GA rating. This necessitated his undertaking an endorsement on whichever lightie was to be the requisite aircraft. The endorsing instructor made a point of having to have a look at Vmca (why ? for routine civil operations, there is absolutely no reason to play near Vmca except, perhaps, for one's initial multi endorsement and, then, only for a brief exposure to yaw handling problems for a degree of familiarisation). Anyway, my colleague, knowing a bit about such things, saw fit not to play as decreed and applied a part rudder bootful of foot to limit the speed excursion to which the aircraft would go prior to yawing uncontrollably - apparently the instructor was quite perplexed - "but it always goes slower than that". However, foolish pride was satisfied and they continued with the rest of the endorsement program.
Overall, the underlying problem is a dreadful lack of pilot technical knowledge and this is not helped by the "blind leading the blind" syndrome we so often see both with theory and flight training of pilots. Hopefully, observations by greybeards, sprinked throughout PPRuNe, will assist in education of those coming on, however limited the success may be.