Pace, and Mad Jock,
I could not agree more! I can remember hearing about a spin being a cloud break procedure, and mentioning this in a discussion with my peers, decades back. An expression of shock and horror filled the room. They could not decide to be horrified because I was full of it, or pilots actually did that back in the day!
Through what has been termed here a "heritage of inexperience", combined with a false sense of safety conservatism, and finally, an apparent yielding to a desire for less total training being required to earn a license, things like proper spin training are falling by the wayside.
The other week, for the first time, I met a Canadian trained pilot who told me that he had never experienced a spin. I suppose I'm a victim of this too, as in my helicopter training, and 40 hours of advanced training after PPL, I have never done a "full on" autorotation. No one will allow them now in their helicopters, for training purposes.
I hope that instructors of today devote themselves to their students enough, that they maintain good spinning skills themselves (not as though it is difficult really), and demonstrate spins to their students. Students, and new pilots, you should be requesting this!