Learning to fly in the USA

[Esperanza]

I'll start by saying that I'm a flying instructor who spends most of his time training PPL students in the UK. I've spent this afternoon flying with a lovely chap who "learnt" (I use the term loosely) to fly in Florida. Over the years I've flown with umpty gazillion graduates of the school that this chap attended. With regards to these students I can safely say that from my own experience very few of them had achieved the same level of competency that they would have had they learnt at a half decent UK school/club.
The above isn't exactly news, and there have already been numerous threads regarding the topic. As an instructor I find it extremely frustrating to keep on coming across students who have wandered off to the US to gain a cheaper PPL, with little regard for the end result. I realise that I am generalising at this point. I'm sure that there are probably any number of good US schools out there.
Anyway, my reason for writing is that I had a look at this chaps logbook and (as per normal) found that his training hadn't followed the standard syllabus. This helped to partly explain why he was struggling. He hadn't been taught the basics. For those of you that have learnt to fly in the UK you will hopefully know that generally Lesson 1= Effects of Controls, Lesson 2= Straight+Level, Lesson 3= Climbing/ Descending/ Turning, Lesson 4= Stalling. After four lessons we've still not got as far as landings. What we do have though is a good grasp of the basics. According to this chaps logbook; by his fourth lesson he had covered all of the above, plus landing, spinning, instrument flying, advanced turns, and practice forced landings...??!!
This appears to be the norm in the US. Am I wrong? Has anyone learnt to fly at one of these intensive Florida PPL schools and found it to have prepared them for flying once they return to the UK? This is of course a very tricky question as most people don't have experience of courses based in both countries.
Apologies for the long winded rant. I just think that it's a shame that so many potential PPL's travel so far to receive what I believe to be below standard instruction.
PS. I've previously worked in the US and so have first hand knowledge of the topic.