tmbstory.
I do not agree with your assesment that a turn is a "basic" manoever. I have yet to meet a new CPL who could do a 30 deg bank angle 180 degree turn, holding a constant bank angle, adjust the pitch attitude as the airplane rolls into and out of the turn so that the altitude does not change and have the ball in the middle through out the turn, all the above accomplished solely by referance to the natural horizon. I think this is because of what I see is a wide spread tendancy in modern flight training to rush through ex 1 to 9. In particular instructors are not insisting that students learn to fly these manoevers accurately and practice them untill they are reliably recognizing and adjusting the bank angle, pitch attitude and correcting for Yawing forces throughout the turn. I have found extra time spent on the "basic" manoevers pays huge dividends for all subsequent exercises.
One of the pernicious aspects of flying training is a rush to get into the circuit so that the student can solo. Aviation seems to judge the worth of insructors on how fast they solo students, which IMO is an absolutely worthless indicator of piloting competance.