ORIGINAL: 50%plane
You need serious help here. You're right. Sims can hurt your flying ability. I know little about you, so I have no idea if you are a natural to RC or not. What I do know is that until I buckled up and worked hard at learning on my sim, I regressed. I used to crash for fun on the sim. Now, I fly the sim plane like my real plane. I concentrate on how the sim plane is flying and I do way more than twittle the sticks. Since this paradigm shift in my sim use, I have come a long way. ya need to do it right or you will hurt your skills.(as you seem to claim)
I think you hit the nail on the head (except for the serious help part).
It would appear as if the only way to get better at flying is to practice. The more practice, the better you get just like a lot of other things in life. Unfortunately, I don't feel that I have gotten good practice out of the sims. In fact, I would say my experience was that it was bad practice.
I'm debating not even using them at all anymore.