I'm not sure about that, Pace. I have limited knowledge of today's instructors but what I've seen doesn't impress. Example:
For my biennial check I usually engage a guy I've known for decades who's at much at home doing aeros in a Yak or flying an ILS in a twin. We'd do some aeros revision and some instrument work in the Chipmunk. One year I forgot and needed the biennial ride ASAP. The only availability was club instructor in a PA38. So I decided that as the PA38 is not the most interesting handling aeroplanes, we'd do an hour with me 'under the hood'.
All was going well until I noticed something was wrong. "I've got climb (full!) power set, climb attitude trimmed, ball is in the middle, but we're not climbing" I said. The instructor had no ideas why that might be. So I peeped out from under the hood. The wind was pretty strong, and we were in the lee of a very large hill. Once I'd taken us clear of that, normality returned.
I don't think any of the guys I did my PPL with back in the 70s would not have known about lee-side sink.