Strictly for comparison, at 265 hours total military flight time, I completed the training command requirements and received my USN Wings. This training was the product of a massive training organization. All but 20 hours were in jet aircraft.
100% of the logged time was in actual flight. During that time, I checked out in 3 different aircraft types, carrier qualified in two of them, flew single pilot IFR, multi-aircraft formation, low level navigation, air to air gunnery and combat, bombing, and strafing. I also witnessed one aircraft spin in-but that wasn't supposed to be part of the syllabus
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Ground school was thorough and fully supported the syllabus. Despite the hurry up, then wait pace of training necessitated by a war-time environment, it took 14 months to complete the syllabus. As I recall, the value of the training in then dollars was about $250,000 (~1965).
When you consider that many of the things we did with the aircraft were not applicable to transport flying, the 250 hour point to begin flying commercially is of itself not unreasonable. What is likely missing from the current equation is the quality of instruction.
Droning along does not create skills. Adversity and challenge do.