Contacted--I have to respectfully disagree.
The issue if whether or not pilots know what is to occur in the sim is irrelevant. The structure of a recurrent does not mimic a line flight first of all and, most importantly, it is meant to be a TRAINING flight (at least in the current system it is where in the session that follows this 6 months later it will be treated as a PPC).
So there is more value in being able to prepare thoroughly, understand the system background and the failure(s) and then practice them in the sim. Especially when the sim session is busy for the full 4 hours.
The LOS/LOE's during the upgrade are the exact opposite of what we do in the recurrent. They mimic a regular day with one major failure and perhaps a few very minor ones. The idea being to give the new commander a realistic scenario that developes his decision making and management.
Trying to throw an FO in the left seat before upgrade training to 'see' how he does will achieve NOTHING!!! He is unfamiliar with the seat and procedures from that side. You can demonstrate all you need to from the right seat.
It appears that most failures are not due to tech knowledge or handling but to poor management. That shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone. This will become more of an issue since over the next few years most of the upgrades will have had no previous command time.
The issue, in my opinion, is not the aircraft you came from but the seat!!! I think you would be better off hiring turboprop captains then low time 737 FO's when it comes to upgrades. A left seat in ANY aircraft prepares you for a captaincy here at EK. The RJ guys that are here that came from the left seat, I am guessing, have no difficulty upgrading.