I thought this thread was dead? . . .

Oh, well. FS04/X and X-plane are fine for having fun and maybe learning a little about procedures, physics, etc., but they fall short when it comes to getting down the true "feel" of the airplane. It's really easy to develop bad habits and to learn over-simplified procedures and controls that you can't use when it comes to real-life flying. If you can appreciate these for what they really are -- games -- you'll be much better off (unless, of course, you have a full instrument and control stack, X-plane or some other program, and a CFI to log time with).