There was a great post by Keygrip once about the USA attracting student pilots with unrealistic expectations and generally the weaker pilots.
Indeed that is nonsense.
The best pilots I know are high-hour high-currency aircraft
owners and many of them did everything in the USA. They bypassed the UK training machine totally.
A lot of people went to Florida to do a PPL on a budget and a lot of them rarely fly because they have no money to fly, so they aren't much good, but the vast majority of UK PPL training system graduates rarely fly too and they consequently aren't much good either - judged after the fact
Keeping half an eye on EASA, this is an interesting topic. I have an FAA CPL/IR (SE) and would one day do a JAA PPL/IR, but don't want to do the UK CAA route because of the stupid screens and the gold plated flying (NDB holds to perfection; no operational relevance of that these days).
Spain and Greece look much more interesting - with the 7 exams done at Gatwick.
There is a school at Jerez which somebody I know spoke highly of, and they did a SE conversion too. The Greek one is basically Egnatia at LGKV; I've been there but never done any flying there.
If doing the full 14-exam conversion (JAA CPL/IR) then the JAA exams can be sat at Athens for something like 5-10 euros each!
However, the UK appears to be unique in (a) allowing a dispensation from the mandatory ground school attendance, and (b) allowing the flying and the test to be done in a foreign-reg plane.