I've thought a lot about this. 20 years ago, I crossed the 1000 hour mark, and thought I knew it all. I didn't wreck anything, but I sure came close, and scared myself into safety. Since then, I've watched and considered. I have flown with a lot of pilots, sometimes receiving their mentoring, though more often demonstrating and checkng them out on new aircraft or operations. Some have died in aircraft I have flown with them.
I observe the following (as total generalizations):
Pilots who learned young, seem more natural to fly, and better "hands and feet" than older new pilots. They take more risks, and are trying to impress and show off more than older pilots. They don't ding aircraft, they don't damage them at all, or they totally wreck them.
Pilots who learn later in life, do well understanding rules and limitations, and are much less likely to challenge them, but are less natural at flying, and will miss details. They think that because they have suceeded in life, and can affort the fancy plane, they feel self assured out of proportion, and might have a nasty surprise just ahead of them. They ding planes, though seem less likely to destroy them.
Because the older ""new pilots" are less likely to show off, and just want easy going flying fun under conservatively safe conditions, they are less likely to find themselves in challenging conditions, though if they blunder in, they will be more challenged getting themselves out safely.
The younger "new pilots" are out sewing wild oats. they have a keen understanding of what they have been taught, and the reflexes to handle most anything, but not the motivation, or life experience to avoid it.
The older old pilots, have seen it all and done it all, and have geneally given up showing off (save for the occasional need to put some young whipper snapper back in palce). They fly natually, and with instinctive skills, but are getting complacent, and that is a very real threat to safety. The "been there, done that" attitude will cause them to be casual, and miss the odd hazard, and sometimes it will bite them. A few near miss wakeup calls will set them straight for a while again, and might even drive them to more instruction.
I've been lucky, I've had the opportunity to do lots of test flying in differnet aircraft types, and I think it helps to keep me fresh. To ward off complacency, I trained for my helicopter license a few years back. I don't know if it has worked, but so far, so good.
Some applicable sayings:
Luck favours the prepared.
You begin flying with a full bag of luck, and an empty bag of experience. The objective is to fill the bag of experience befoe you empty the bag of luck.
Read, listen, practice, respect the laws (both legal and gravity), and never think you are invincable, and you'll do fine for a long time to come!
Pilot DAR