Automation solves many problems and creates many more...
Visual circuits and go arounds with low level offs are great examples of automatics making normal flight manoeuvres quite tricky also LNAV and VNAV approaches that are not runway aligned mean lots of switching and resetting MCPs and heading bugs and flight directors that maybe giving "false" information.
I think Sim time is mostly wasted which is a shame. For the LOE exercise you have most likely read the cheat notes and know what to suspect. For the usual laps around the block for the IR renewal, everyone gets the hang of that after a while... Sim time well spent could provide a answer Jet upset/airspeed failure is prob more useful than an NBD