Had the PA38 been flown solely by armed forces as an ab initio trainer then I doubt much trouble would have arisen with the machine. Tomahawk design instability was a little more electrifying than had been the case in civilian trainers, especially in a wing drop situation. Air Force training and instructors are designed to cope with snappier machines than the lazy old leisure flyer and all that was missing in the early days of the PA38 was a more carefully thought out flight profile manual and some experienced acrobatic instructors to train others in the aircraft.
Although it's not a good idea to pick up a dropping wing on a PA28 or a C150 with aileron, it can usually be done quite safely and effectively. That action though, of jerking the control column in a lateral direction through full deflection, is often the student's first reaction to deep stall wing drop. Try that little trick in a PA38 and you can flick into a spin over easy. You couldn't emphasis that sort of recovery in a POH some thirty five years ago, probably any more than now. You'd scare the punters.
I certainly didn't enjoy flying the machine in the hot and high African veldt but the aircraft certainly did what it was designed to do and students did benefit from it and enjoyed the 'luxury' of their CCs in the C172s or PA180s we used.