But why should we be teaching civilian pilots the same way as military ones? I agree that the mil have some great ways of teaching and produce the best pilots, but they do hand pick the people with the most ability to start with. The military world is also gearing the students up to become pilots of high performance aircraft, so teaching the techniques used in those aircraft from the onset is probably a consideration.
I don't think that earlier solo really matters in the civil world, we need to get civilian students to be able to control the aeroplane before they go solo. Probably the reason for teaching elevator for speed and power for rate of descent is to re-enforce in the student's mind that if you apply back pressure your speed will reduce whatever the power setting, and that if you make a power setting change you need to adjust pitch attitude. As the pilot becomes more experienced (post-PPL), sure they can adjust their own technique to one that is more "energy management".
I'm willing to be educated (having only just gained my FI(R)), but I think this is the kind of thing that we discussed on my course.