Agreed. Although I do believe things have changed a lot now. I am friends with an Ex-instructor from a large well known Spanish training school who said that a number of years ago it wasn't uncommon for an IR examiner to give a student the keys to an aircraft on a CAVOK day and say something along the lines of "There's the aircraft, take-off, climb into the overhead, do one hold, fly an ILS. Once on the ground come and find me and tell me that you've done it, I'll sign your licence"
I also used to work with an ex airline Captain who once cancelled an MCC course within two hours, with two guys who had apparently just finished their MEIRs in Spain, but between them couldn't fly straight and level in cloud. They were made to resit their their MEIR skills tests in the UK at considerable cost before they could continue.