Caped crusader, not sure if previous two posts have answered your questions!
Pay cut is a big determinant...plus to some extent, 'fear' of the training system..it takes a few years to get to know a company culture. Often it comes down to not moving the family around so much from country to country(all freighter guys are based...sort of...some get hkg rosters but no hkg expat benefits!) every 2-4 years or so. If you just bought a house in HKG you don't want to give up the housing allowance you use to pay it off to get an earlier upgrade. Lots of little reasons. I don't believe there is any real stigma to transferring in either direction!?
The sim instructors....2 types...those that do training and those that do checking. The trainers are almost all ex commercial pilots...many from the big Australian dispute of 89. Some were in CX but have lost their medicals. The checkers are line check captains...ie they check in sims and on the line equally!
All clear?
PS training...hmmm....my ex wife thought using the DVD remote control was difficult....so who am i to judge whether our training is difficult. I do think we have an abnormally high failure rate but that is just my opinion! Talk to your 'peers' that are here and see what they have to say!