My idle glance at this thread led me to some serious thought on this subject.
I was trained in the UK military and spent six years as "a military pilot". Since then I have spent 30 years as a civilian pilot, split fairly evely between corporate and offshore flying. I presently hold a junior management position with one of the major offshore helicopter companies and, over the last few years I have benn responsible in one way or another for some 100 pilots.
The attitude of the military pilots has undergone a considerable change in the last few decades. The Vietnam vets that I work with are, to a man, extremely efficient pilots with a very good work ethic. They will always do the job first but, if there have any issues, they will be very forthright in stating them. They will accept positions of authority reluctantly but invariably do a good job whilst in that position. The modern day military pilots (particularly from the USA) expect to be promoted to these positions as they see themselves as being better trained than their civilian counterparts. This is not always the case!
When I finished my ab-initio training I had 220 hours airborne and in that time I had not only learned to fly a helicopter but had learned to use it as an air observation post, to control artillary and naval gunfire and to act as a forward air controller whilst flying single pilot. Also, the day after I finished training I was an aircraft commander. However, I had no instrument skills and CRM (apart from being unheard of) was a mystery.
In the company that I work for, a new pilot comes out of flight school with approx the same number of hours as I had but with very different skills. he has an instrument rating and he/she (hopefully) has been given a thorough grounding in CRM and MCC. Which of us had the better training is a moot point but I would be less than comfortable to authorise these guys to go of flying on there own. In fact, most of them will achieve 3000 hours flight time before achieving command.
Then there are the "self improvers". Tremendously dedicated people who have spent their own time and money to reach their "holy grail" of becoming a commercial helicopter pilot. They tend, almost without exception to have been instructors on singles and in many cases IREs. Often, they arrive with expectations of being Check Airmen within a very short time and are invariably disappointed when this is not the case. As a group (and I don't like generalisations) they are prepared to do the extra jobs (flight safety officer etc.) willingly and well. However, I have found that many have struggled with achieving the standard offlying that we require, particularly in the IF area.
Of course, all of the above are generalisations and individuals will always differ but, with the military trained pilot, you will get someone who will be familiar with command and will have no difficulty in making the decisions required of a commander but, may well be somewhat inflexible, not want to adapt to your company's modus operandi and will expect to have your job within the first year. The ab-initio will be the easiest to mold to your company's way of operating but will come with a low skill level and will take a lot of resources to bring to command. The "self improver" will come with all of the above attributes, or none of them, there is no way of knowing!
Who would I prefer to employ?
Obviously, the Vietnam vet.
Outside of him, all of them! Because, where and how you trained has no bearing at all on the pilot that you will become. That is down to each and every individual to become as good a pilot as they want to be. All of these people can fly, let's face it, flying isn't difficult. What defines a "good pilot" is his attitude and his willingness never to stop learning. My career is close to the end and I still can be surprised to find that a 200 hour cadet can tell me something about a helicopter that I didn't know before.
This debate is senseless (although good fun) as has been said before, but this was why this forum was started.
Fly safely and, above all, Enjoy!
Cyclic.