Personally, I flew in a SR20 for my private and currently fly the same for my instrument training. I agree that some people can be overwhelmed and love the fancy electronics, but I looked ahead and realized what I will be flying in the future, so I shut them out. A big problem comes with the partial panel training, as you can only turn the entire PFD off in flight and not specific information.

For my private course, I kept the MFD on the map page for the beginning of my training to get situational awareness, but by the time I was 1/2 way into the training, I switched over to the engine page and used the sectional for situational awareness. To this day, I am still doing the same. For the fancy navigation, I use the GNS 430 to input the VOR freq, tune it, identify it, and twist to the desired radial that I want. For the rest of the GPS, I setup the navaid for DME information (BTL instead of KBTL). For the approaches, I don't load the procedure approach into the GPS, I rather use intersections from other navaids to identify where I am at. This is the same with the private when I used 2 fixed to identify my location.

In my own opinion, I feel that the training is no different, but it all depends on how YOU and your instructor both train on the glass aircraft. I tend to do everything old fashion with new technology, because you never know when new technology will fail and your left with the old school systems.

You also went to a Collegiate program, the folks out there not on the professional track have different needs and mindsets, just my thoughts and experience with that matter.