I agree that UA experience in a sim is a box-ticking exercise. Much more emphasis, with many operators, is stedfast compliance with SOP's and maximum use of automatics to steer well clear of any UA possibility. Mother nature combined with human nature strives endlessly to spoil the party. When that happens the extreme lack of basic IR scan, handling skills and knowledge of a/c capabilities is thrown to the fore and too many pilots are found wanting. Sadly the conclusion of resulting accident is often 'pilot error' rather than 'training/company culture' error.
This theme has been beaten to death on here, mote than once, motivated by an unavoidable accident. It saddens me to hear that various airlines have pilots who are considered to be highly trained and competent and thus attractive for the rapidly expanding companies to poach for themselves.One wonders if they are really highly trained flyers or highly trained operators.
I know of colleagues in the more hands on type of operation who are impressed by the strict and structured line operation and sim operation of such pilots, but significantly less impressed when they are asked to perform basic piloting handling skills.
It might be the claim that 'our trained monkeys are better than your trained monkeys, therefore we are a safer operator.' However, when the manure hits the airco I would like to sit behind the better handling pilot than the piano player wondering which button to push next to solve the problem and extricate themselves from the poo. Usually the concert musician makes it worse. The jammer improvises.