WWW
Agree with you on that side. There are advantages to both FAA and JAA systems, but it depends where you will be flying mostly.
As a JAA school, we choose to take the best of the JAA and teach that to the FAA as well as vice versa. I think if a student merely trains for a FAA PPL, he will have some time to complete on his return to become familiar with the area whether he requires it or not. We normally recommend as soon as possible visiting their local school/club and receiving approx 3-5 hours familiarization with them. As anyone knows, you may be able to fly with your eyes closed, but if you are not familiar with the area......
As for the JAA CPL, I would suggest to everyone to get the JAA ATPL exams out of the way as quickly as possible. I have a number of Instructors that train at a very reputable school in the US, gain their FAA CFI, instruct for two years and then complete the JAA ATPL exams; I think the thought of completing these beloved exams gets more daunting as the time goes on- better to get it all over with when you are completing all the training. If you then want to instruct, it is far easier to convert to the FAA system!