Yes there are dedicated students in the present system who do go the extra mile, but there are also a lot who tend to do the absolute minmum.
And that's where the problem is, the airlines don't bother to figure out who those people are, they just pick the people that meet the numbers, or get them the best deal on sim time with the relevant integrated provider.
So, get ticks in the box, get the numbers and pay for your type rating and you have as much chance of landing a job as a pilot who slogged their way through, learning the material getting worse ATPL results because they didn't blast the question bank and loves it so much that he puts the effort it to deliver a good performance buys a little ****heap plane, maintains it, puts a couple of hundred hours on it learning plenty about handling, wind, maintenance, control surfaces etc.
The exams are irrelevant, they always will be. It's the quality of the people and on the face of it, that's being ignored.
You might even sneer and say but what's all that got to do with SIDs, STARs, SOPs, and Jets? Perhaps nothing but that would mean we're back at square one.
Pull What, you can't teach situational awareness on the PPL, they're 100% maxxed on the basics. It's possible to try and in the cases of the really good students you can work them hard on it but really it's something that comes after a couple of hundred hours.