Althought I am against P2F, I had to invest in a TR to get where I needed in my career. Never paid for line training or else, but one has to consider various perspectives when talking about spending money for a type rating:
Many people would not hesitate to take a loan in order to buy a $50,000 brand new Mercedes...Guess what? Given the choice, I'd take a nice A320 type rating for half the price, and still be able to afford a decent $25,000 new car...
Investing in a type rating is not nonsense, of course as long as you can have a reasonable plan to fly it soon after. But is the gamble that different from investing 100,000 Euros for a CPL multi-IR? When you start, nobody knows if it's ever going to bear fruit.
Training has become a real cash-cow business like nothing before. More than 15 years ago, my CPL multi-IR cost me $9,600... I spent more on food and accomodation.. but to save the money, I flew a microlight, cropspraying bananas in Africa for a year... Some days it scared the sh*t out of me. Did not have any back-up for a loan then.
I guess it is about personal goals and sense of achievement. If the guy is 42 y/o and can see through the investment and training, and more get satisfaction in what he does, why not.
I would love to enroll NTPS and do my test pilot course. But I ain't cutting my veins to find the enormous amount of money required. If I win the lottery, I'll go, just for the fun of it, and for the thrill of learning something new, even if I never fly after that.
Flex