Very well put.
It mirrors my own thoughts on the matter and makes me sigh when people start calling one sim more realistic than another. I learnt how to drive cars by playing VR Racing in Arcades and Namco Pole Position! When I was learning to drive a car in real life, I used Gran Turismo 3 A Spec to get used to manual gear changes and feel that my years of playing racing games (Whether Arcade or Simulator) have made me a better driver.
A few things have put this into stark contrast in my eyes. The first was going to Mercedes Benz World back in 2010 and having the fortune of playing a pre-release build of Gran Turismo 5. The game felt great, the graphics were brilliant but driving the SLS around the test tack straight afterwards? Not comparable, from the sound, sensations and feel, driving a car in a simulator is never a direct comparison to driving a car in real life. They're somewhat connected, but you will always be disconnected in a simulator.
The second was more recent. A friend at work is a big fan of simulators, hates Arcade games, hates consoles and can't stop talking about the subtle differences in simulators. He's driven race prepared Ferraris, has a wheel set up with AC and has looked down on console sims. We both got the chance to drive our bosses modified Integra DC5, he was first and I sat in the back. He was missing gears, had erratic steering, jumps on the gas at completely random moments and asked me to check to see if their was traffic and tell him if it was clear... I jumped in, not a problem! He may have been having a crisis but if made me think, if he's driving sims for hours a week, why's he so **** in real life! When we got back, the boss was taking the micky out of his driving but he was busy for the next week after talking about how close the DC5 mirrored his diesel estate in lower revs...
The final was a little insight into how simulators work. I had a work opportunity to work on one for a motorsport manufacture several years ago, although I declined the offer in the end, but had an insight into how they work. Combined with reading up on the difference between a simulated reality being wondrous in capturing real world possibilities but also showing false positives and not declaring enough feedback, combined with chance and circumstance, there's a false sense of them being the real thing when in reality, they are not.
In the end, a racing simulator is designed to be fun, if set up right. Can't wait to play Project Cars 2 tomorrow! Fingers crossed they sorted the controller feedback.