While I wholeheartedly endorse that playing PC sims (whether FSX or X-Plane or whatever) is not even a remote substitute for actual airtime, I wonder how much of this "PC sim loathing" is based on actual experience let alone reliable data.
My personal experience aligns well with most of the older posts in this thread: quite useless for aircraft handling, but potentially useful for training procedures, navigation (radio-based, and with a good scenery also VFR), and R/T if flying online.
(Apart from being fun, immersive, and comparatively cheap, even with add-ons and hardware gimmicks like yoke/joystick, pedals, TrackIR etc.)