Backpacker.
Of course you are correct you can dampen out all the detail. The problem is when you get into simming you start wanting all the detail so that it is close to the real aircraft experience and for that you need a powerful computer.
You want the clouds to look like real clouds. The terrain so detailed that you can fly VFR as in the real world and the aircraft to look and feel like the real thing.
That is why there is such a huge market of addons for the sim covering anything imaginable to make the experience as close to reality as possible.
There was one development going with online flying. where two pilots in different parts of the world could join and communicate with each other both seeing the same displays.
That would have been an amazing development. An Instructor and a student both in their own homes giving on line instrument flying lessons real time although miles or even countries apart.
As Say Again Slowly said You cannot teach yourself very well in a sim but you can practice what you have been taught in your last lesson at a much lower cost than in the real aircraft.
It was so much easier learning NDB tracking at home where you could stop the sim and refly the pattern until you understood it.
As far as I remember there were specialist programmes as addons that taught you and gave you instrument challenges to fly and be marked on.
Pace