Jacko
I was referring to VS in the context of teaching people to fly in the pure sense not the applied one.
Most of your remarks are related to the issues that surround conversion to type, currency and so on for which there is no substitute for using either the real aeroplane or a modern full mission simulator.
I had my QFI hat on where I have a student who only knows the type of handling he has experienced in his limited (one or two) types to date. Good ones wonder what it would be like to handle (not operate) a Hercules a VC10 a MiG-29 you name it. At present all they can experience is bar chat from those who may have relevant experience.
The difference in handling such types (from the pilot’s point of view) is down to a relatively small number of issues, weight (inertia), wing sweep (lift curve slope) stall characteristics (type of aerofoil/wing design and any vortex lift possibilities) plus aircraft response to throttle movement. In other words what you would notice in trying to fly each type for a few moments in straight and level, in a steep turn on landing approach and so on. VS offers the opportunity to patter all that and so both educate/motivate the stude as well as seeing if he is somebody who should be kept away from small twitchy types etc etc.
The issues you raised about airworthiness are certainly relevant to Astra Hawk (a hydraulically controlled TV set) but would not exist with a FBW design.
JF