I hear what you're saying and there is a point to doing things in sims vs. the proverbial 10k an hour KC-135R pattern ride to win the battle on training beans
Just my two old fart cents, we had it right in the 80's for heavies. Flew as required the big MDS for ops, tng and such. Flew the ACE jets for training and proficiency (Tweet, 38s).
For budgetary sanity, for the heavies, give them an economical trainer and replace just 10-20% of their training hours and get some Vitamin G once in a while. I can only speak for myself but I would have traded 50 training hours for 100 hours in a modern aero aircraft when at homeplate and not burining dinos over the desert.
I like the GameBird
https://talkbusiness.net/2017/09/faa-certifies-gamebird-aerobatic-airplane-to-be-built-in-bentonville/
Close visual formation, aerobatics, VFR by clock map ground, etc... not that those specific skills are applicable to their MWS but the fundamentals to them build strong pilots (multi-tasking, quick cross check, thinking ahead, etc...)
After 20 years of flying heavies and sometimes flying GA, I can tell I'm in better pilot after a period of keeping those basic pilot muscles strong in a plane without George, autothrottles, TCAS, etc...