Until about 20 years ago the UK CAA requirement for IR renewal in the sim was: no autopilot, no autothrottle, nav by ADF/ VOR/ ILS. Use of the flight director was allowed. As a TIRE I would brief crews that although there was little relevance to everyday flight ops the exercise kept handling skills and instrument scan to a high level of competence. A by-product was maintaining pilots' confidence in their abilities. Training captains were required to fly the exercise with one engine shut down. Perhaps airline accountants and managers could be persuaded to include a similar exercise in recurrent sim checks.