Good morning!
... he kept referring to "left" and "right" items as "port" and "starboard"
That would have driven me crazy as well! If I wanted to go starboard and port, I would have joined the navy, not the airforce, so to say... I think this starboard and port stuff is another one of these things that can really only be appreciated by people who were born in the United States of Kingdom. But I would simply have complained the first time the instructor had used these terms and honestly wouldn't have known which direction to turn anyway.
That apart, I had a completely different experience in Dallas last year than Kilroy. But I did a slighty different course then for the C550/560 series (Bravo/Ultra/Encore) following the JAA syllabus which is done on a different (probably more modern) simulator and maybe also with different instructors.
The sim was very reliable, during my stay it had one technical fault that was fixed within hours so that the course schedule needed only slight adjustments. Like Kilroy, I was the only one on my course and needed a second instructor as "right seater" in the simulator. I had a different one on nearly every session, but none of them missed the briefing and they all did a perfect job with textbook-like crew coordination. No starboard and port nonsense ever :-)
From the non-standard terminology criticised by Kilroy, I remember only the "christmas tree". No dogs and pigs and if I'm not all wrong, the "red gun failure" is contained in the original Cessna checklist. But out of curiosity, I will look that up when I'm at the airport later. Have to re-read the manuals anyway, recurrent training is not so far away anymore - I at least wouldn't mind if my employer sends me to Dallas again for that!
Greetings, Max