Squawk, you make it sound as if things are mutually exclusive: you either train for the NQ or the PPL skills test. But that's simply not true.
I did the dual part of my NQ as part of the PPL. Bunch of circuits followed by a very long x-country flight (total flight time a little over three hours as I recall). During the flight, over some uninhabited terrain (no lights) and with some rain clouds around, I regularly had to use instruments just to stay level. We did some touch & gos at major airports (I did my PPL in Florida), it was the first time I ever flew in class B, several parts of the flight were done using radio navigation, and crossing the Orlando CTR was done using radar vectors. Other than fuel burn/endurance/w&b/weather/notams and the initial leg, the flight was largely unplanned, making it a continuous diversion exercise. ("Okay, where are we" "Right here" "Okay, now take me there and give me an ETA" etc.)
All very useful stuff to learn/practice/experience, even in daytime. Glad I did it.
And arguably, you could even practice stalls, steep turns, PFLs etc in the dark.