www, jepp said that they climbed from a 1,000' cloudbase to 8,000' without finding any "blue". From that I think it's reasonable to assume the partial panel exercise was carried out under IMC as they couldn't break out on top. The tone which jepp uses implies uncertainty at carrying out the partial panel exercise out of sight of the ground.
It sounds to me like they were doing partial panel in IMC conditions.
If this is indeed the case then there is no need for anybody to wind their necks in. An instructor doing partial panel in IMC conditions is breaking the rules and basically being a tw@t.