glofish
I think you getting carried away in your lament about lack real experience and lack of virtues of simulator practice. Except flying hundreds of visual and instruments approaches may be in raw data there is nothing else you do in handson flying and if any one needs decades to get the basic throttle and stick skill he may have been better off in another profession. In the days of actual OEI practice in air I know of an accident where during OEI GA due to sudden application of wrong rudder a B737 crashed in dispersal and rammed into a parked aircraft killing people in that aircraft along with it's own pilots. There are hundreds of pilots who retire without ever experiencing an engine failure, wind shear, TCAS or multiple hydraulic or electrical failures. You want to practice these in the air? That will definitely not improve the safety but give rise to avoidable accidents for which the airline would be shut down. You don't have to die to become an expert in living. Modern simulators have significantly improved safety. They are being made more and more like real aircraft like and give you fair idea about environmental conditions like wind shear etc. and feel of serious systemic failures. To enter an airliner cockpit if one has to go through the labyrinthine route as suggested by you and some others then half the travelling public may have to postpone their travel plans by some years.
We will never be able to simulate and fully train every situation that might arise. What helps is experience
Experience of what? Any abnormality in modern aircraft may be the first and last you ever get. I know a manufacturer's instructor who trained some of us on another type when he himself flew in an airline rejected take off in a 747 after V1 and landed up outside the runway. Can happen.Simulators are not merely OK but the only way to experience any serious failure.