I completely agree...
Back in the "day" when I started out as a LEO we all used .38's on the range and .357 in the field and given the hit rates of that era, vs todays among LEO's it did not hurt a bit. Now the .22upr vs the .45acp duty load may be a bit of a stretch but trigger time is trigger time. Dealing with the recoil is not the most difficult part of hitting with a handgun until you get to heavy hitters like .44mag and up in my opinion. Its all about front sight concentration, and trigger pull for the most part and you can learn that with anything that goes bang and shoots straight.
I had the same experience as an LEO; I didn't select my first handgun, it was selected for me, and we shot the crap out of .38 wadcutters before they let us use the oh so precious (read: expensive) .357's, and then it was only 18 of those precious rounds.
You hit the nail on the head as far as training: It's all about the basics.