I'm not sure. I never learned any sort of finesse during my base training on either of the sessions I did (ZFTT takes away all the fun now...) and if you've never flown an airliner before I suspect the subtleties you are talking about might be lost on a new cadet. I am not a TRI(A) but I recall then the briefing being they were looking for stable approaches with positive corrections, and a safe flare technique consistently executed. However, with no experience on the -700 my opinion is just that.
I would imagine the real justification is that it's the same type on the licence, and running up 3500 cycles a year on a second hand workhorse is cheaper than taking the same number of cycles from your overworked main fleet.