By they i was referring to the integrated courses from people like OAA/CTC, though your probably right that if, for example, you were the first person to express any interest in a couple of months you may well get through despite not being 'the best'.
It does intrigue me about PPL, that you could do it quite easily without leaving your own home, other than for flying lessons. And i suppose if your a natural and do a lot of training on the sims (MS Flight Sim, XPlane etc) then your only going to help yourself.
Out of interest, how much does '1 hour' of flying generally cost, on average. £200-300 i would guess? Given that youve got to do a certain amount of get the license (you have, havnt you), does it work out cheaper to do it privately or through a school that costs £30000 but does everything up to PPL.
Having thought about this more and more i can see why modular, for those not in sponsored schemes, is popular!