Not so Rainboe. I bid for all commands (except the Budgie) and the 747 came up first. The reason that I can't comment is that I have only experienced long haul, so I don't know how different my handling skills would have been if I'd done some time in short haul. All I know is that they were adequate.
There are advantages for the airline in doing a seat change on type as there is no downtime for the type technical course. I got back from my last RHS trip a few days before starting the sim in the LHS. Some airlines, such as Virgin, only fly long haul, and I haven't heard of them having any problems with handling on command courses. Perhaps a Virgin pilot could confirm or correct this.
I assume that Air France must have had some problems for them to go down this route.
Dave