Found that article about Zero Flight Time ATPL. The article appeared in CAT magazine Vol.5. Issue 5. By the way, an excellent magazine on all things training in this industry.
At the Flight Crew Training Conference which was held in London in 1994 a Cpt Bob Salisbury - British Airways Senior Training Manager, presented a paper called 'Zero Flight Time - Is it Feasible? Is it Desirable?"
Basically he asked what benefit was learning visual navigation, the 'complexities' of the signal square or how a variable pitch prop works, which are 'forgotten' when the students move on to learn the complexities of how to fly heavy jet transport aircraft. His words not mine!
The answer he gave was to introduce zero Flight Time training in a FFS.
From what the article states, I think the idea was to generate a level of discussion as to whether the current system of ab-initio training is satisfactory for todays complex transport aircraft. The big question the paper raised was "Why has the ab-initio training changed so little in the past 30 odd years, when the aircraft have made the most radical changes?"
Seems he had a lot of hostile reaction from flying instructors and the schools sales managers
Makes interesting reading.