dental schools lowering operative skills standards?

After the anguish and uncertainty of cutting inlay and onlay preps during operative last year and subsequently casting them, I could see why lots of my classmates are praying they never have to cut one in clinic. But some of our professors in clinic still encourage them - one of my classmates has began a molar onlay prep on a patient - and that is his first EVER operative experience on a patient! (After hearing that, I feel very lucky that my first was a class I resin). I personally don't think an onlay is such a bad idea - my molar could use an onlay rather than a crown, but I need to find a dentist that can competenly do it. I think I'm a little more weary of the inlay and don't trust it as much. But our school's productivity tracking system in clinic makes students seek the teachers who will treatment plan a crown with them b/c you get more points for doing a crown rather than the onlay - and they take the same amount of time, effort, lab work, and appointments. They no longer teach gold foil at our school - will the onlay/inlay be the next to go? GV Black was a great man, but maybe the operative departments need to rethink their procedures, materials, and curriculums and update them for the 2000s.