Tourist,
I would wholeheartedly agree with you. Airliners are designed to operate in an environment with very wide safety margins, and quite rightly too. Hence actual experience gained from real life events is, indeed, limited if you have only ever flown airliners.
Simulator practice is all well and good however we seem to have come to a position where many airline pilots 'practice' hand flying in the real aircraft to 'prepare' for the simulator check. Somewhat back to front in my opinion but the sim check has become more of a hoop jumping/box ticking exercise rather than a tool for the dissemination of useful skills, practice and information.
All IMHO of course.