lol, Des, there I was reading your post thinking "Weren't you on the same course as Hamel?" ;-)
Anyways, I suspect that the reg force and reserve experiences of CFSCE are dramatically different. I think Hamel's right on the money on a lot of issues.
Combine that with the fact that the reserve units send in their pooched equipment first (of which they usually have lots), and you end up with a poor training situation, overall. Beyond that, the reservist instructors aren't always top notch, for a number of reasons. Don't get me wrong, I liked my course instructors...but I don't think that my course was well-instructed. (Partly because of the instructors' attitudes and skills, but probably more because their hands were tied by CFSCE administration.)
Let's face it, you get instructors who just go from course to course - BMQ/SQ, 3's, 5's, PLQ - and then they start teaching this stuff without ever having actually USED it in any intensive sense (sure, they've done a fair number of small-scale weekend exercises, maybe a small handful of larger exercises, but there are often substantial aspects of what they're supposed to be teaching that they don't really know anything about, themselves). Back at my unit, I'm finding that the best teachers are the ones who don't usually teach. It's the ones who take summer taskings other than courses, or who go overseas, who actually know what's going on.