[ska]

   but in many cases I didn't find that to be true. 

I wouldn't be so sure. Consider the "opposite" approach in some sense, a person who has only done a rapid training online course in current techniques. I give them a very specific task that matches their training well, they will probably do ok. If something unexpected happens though, they will mostly be unable to address it effectively. If a slightly different problem comes up, they won't know how to address that, either. They will have a shallow sense of "how", and very little sense of "why". Worse, they are ill prepared for adapting new techniques; i'd probably be just as well off finding a newer version to hire, who has had more recent training....

Sure, not all courses are as good as they could be (nor all lecturers) but the core of what they are trying to teach you is nothing as simple as methods. Methods are the easy part, after all.