Whirlybird, I agree with what you are saying and i almost said at the end of my post that although continuity is good, i dont like the OBA type of training where you go from zero flying knowledge to PPL in 3 weeks. I just dont think that it gives enough exposer to flying and after all, most of what we know about flying never came from a book but from personal experience and the experience of others.
I dont think that the amount of hours a person has gives a true representation of their knowledge though, so its irrelevent if a person passes the PPL with 45 hours or 145 hours, they still have to meet a minimum skill level.