Col, I guess you meant the A320 in Bahrain.
It all comes down to theory vs practice, we all get to the point in our sim training where we can fly the thing on rails - then we go to the aircraft and start all over again, combining the knowledge we learned in the sim with that of our past experience, if any.
I've seen sim techies fly the thing beautifully but I wouldn't let them near an aircraft! Two different worlds. To someone behind a desk the world is all theory, unfortunately these are the decision makers (not referring here to management pilots).