I think flight sim is taking an unfair hammering here. I finished my ppl last nov and found it incredibly helpful. Admittedly im a total nerd and spent a decent amount of money to get it setup right. 3 screens, yoke, pedals, phote realistics scenery for south england.
Adressing the tendancy to focus on intrusments. You can hide the instruments in flight sim as well if you want, and there are alternate views from outside the plane to get a better picture of what your control surfaces are doing (something you can't do in a reall plane). As long as you're aware that you shouldn't be spending 80% of your time looking at the instruments then it can be a great tool.
- Can practice pre flight checks on a layout the same as your training plane.
- With photo real scenery you can fly all your navs before you get in a plane. This way you know what landmarks you are looking for.
- With vatsim you practice your radio calls against real humans practicing to be controllers.
- Can get exp with more complex types before you go near them.