It always was and always will be competency based training. Even for you dinosaurs it was. Its just that these days they have a nice shiny and wanky name for it. You only went solo because you were up for it i.e competent.
Saying that, I think most of modern day CBT is about ar$e covering than a pathway to high quality pilots.
It still comes down to the individual instructor, his or her passion and care for the job at hand, and how well they were taught to begin with.
Nothings changed, just the paperwork blizzard.