Flight Simulator 2002, 2004, X, whatever...it's just a game and it's great as a procedures trainer, and is not meant to teach you how to fly a real airplane. When MS say "as real as it gets" I think they mean as real as they can get it compared to other flight simulators of lesser quality.

With regard to VATSIM, it's nice when there are actually controllers online. Most of the time I'm getting taxi clearance from some center controller. When there are plenty of controllers, VATSIM is great. Otherwise, eh.

Back to FS, you can definitely make it more realistic and applicable for VFR training if you get MANY monitors that encompass your visual availability in the real airplane. But if you add up all that hardware expense, you're better off just fly the real thing and log some real time on the books.