DFC,
Thank you for a very informative post. I agree with the way you put it. Today I had a few students, practicing glide, slip and MCA on there fifth flight with a completion standard of "Altitude +/- 100 ft, Airspeed +/- 5 kts and Heading +/- 10 deg". I felt horrible having to do this!!! They are not comfortable with basic climb/descent, turns, climbing/descending turns (incl. rudder handling, trim and attitude flying) yet. Very hard to determine there progress under such circumstances. Oh well...