The glaring weaknesses in flight training

[Karl]

The first aircraft I trained in was a glider. One day the instructor set me up to "land on that cloud" as I flew the circuit to land he talked me into a low and slow downwind situation, then asked, "What are you going to do?" I innocently replied, "Early base and land long." "Do it" he said. Of course at low speed trying to extend the glide as soon as I banked we dropped a wing and as I tried to recover from the spin I could hear him telling me we were both dead. A lesson in aerodynamics that I never forgot.

When I did my ppl I could fly and land the plane due to my previous flight experiences with gliders.
One day whilst about to touch down in a C150 the instructor suddenly pushed the yoke forward, we landed on the nosewheel and bounced, amongst much shouting and swearing I added power to stabilise the aircraft, and landed again. His excuse was that students usually bounce the aircraft and they can teach a recovery, but my prior experience prevented that so he decided to induce a bounce and see what I did.

The glider experience was frightening but a great lesson that I have never forgotten. The C150 experience risked damage to the aircraft and potential injury to both of us.

[Boatguy]

Can you imagine GA pilots shelling out $5k every 6 months for recurrent training

Well, the real question is whether the insurance companies can imagine requiring it for decent rates, and whether the claims/accidents they see would be affected by this training.

I suspect they'd rather see 5k every 6 months shelled out on fuel calculation training.

Insurance companies make money by investing premiums at a higher rate of return than they pay out in claims. Do the math. Assume a fixed percentage spread between premiums and claims. An increase in the total dollar volume of premiums and claims yields the greater volume of profits.