Andy, I've gotta agree with your post. Very good points. However, I feel that you should start in a conventional panel to get the basics, then transition into glass. How often did you find your primary students relying too much on the glass?

We're in a transition period, so to speak, in that a lot of new students are starting in glass, but all of the instructors teaching in the glass planes learned on steam gauges. I think it's up to us to make sure that we teach the basics, so that when the guys who started in glass become CFI's, they don't teach their own glass dependence.

However I agree that having some glass time can be very beneficial for transitioning to a regional airliner.