On the Airbus, I have done around 20 actual nitty-gritty sectors in the past 30 days.
Not saying it is ideal, far from perfect by a long shot, but as the present system enables complete lack of experience to be promoted through the ranks without gaining much experience on the long haul fleet, why not promote the junior ranks onto a regional fleet?
Keep junior F/Os and Captains on the A330 only for a minimum time - 3 years, 5 years, whatever - at the same time, run a parallel training system that allows a true "freebie" non marked sim, for handling, max crosswind, stalling, looping, playing, more often than once a year.
Experience cannot be gained sitting in back seat watching or sitting in the cruise operating radios on a long haul flight in any way more than if I watched Top Gun 1,000 times and expected to rock it on an F-16.