All ATP's expensive? I think I paid less than $2,000 for an initial commercial / multi / instrument /Commercial & ATP written.

Yeah, if you do the entire career training it IS expensive. But if you fly independently and just use them to sharp shoot the rating, it is cheap, fast and effective.

I've always been suspicious of the programs that have a flight instructor in the airplane and it seems like 4 people are all logging flight time in a light twin. I'm even more suspicious of folks logging sim time. But, it is easy to side step those wastes of time and money if the guy is motivated and willing to spend some time networking with other pilots at their local airport. I've let several pilots fly & log some time in my airplanes over the years, just paying back the many that helped me fill in those precious first 1200 hours.