Why choose? I shoot 20k+ rounds of precision rimfire and 10k+ rounds of precision centerfire every year. Some years a lot more.
I don't drive to a range... I just walk outside. Live fire is
always more valuable than dry fire.
$4k, $8k, $12k on a rifle... who cares. I have multiples of them. No one is forcing anyone to buy rifles. So why so much hand wringing about cost? There are options at literally every price point. You think the guys that run bergara centerfires have to go spend $4k to mimic their centerfire? You can get a B14R for under a thousand bucks, last I checked. For another thousand, you can stick it in whatever stock/chassis your centerfire is in. If the goal is alleviating ones self of pressure to attain more money to buy products, any argument, right or wrong, will suffice as justification.
This entire thread is started with the premise of you arguing a negative. So while you go on and on about there being no water in the glass... the rest of us are drinking our full. Your statements regarding precision 22lr and what can/can not be learned from it might be accepted by those with little or no experience. Those of us with 20 years or more of time with precision 22lr simply aren't going to be swayed by false gospel which directly contradicts our own hard earned experience. We don't just
think time spent with 22lr is valuable. We
know it is. After the reasons being shared with you, no matter their legitimacy, you maintain your position... trying to argue a negative and mistakenly thinking the burden of proof falls on us. Such a pointless thread, and one I'll not participate in further. It's as if someone called you up yesterday and tried to force you to buy a 22lr or something. lol
https://www.zmescience.com/science/the-dunning-kruger-effect-feature/
If a man searches for scarceness, he will find it. If a man searches for abundance, he will find it.
I'd also like to point out, there is no way for any of us to refute what you're saying, without you trying to take offense. The mere suggestion that you simply don't know what you don't know, causes offense, and this is evidenced by your refusal to accept it when presented with it. Such is the nature of strongly held beliefs that are consequently, wrong. Further increasing the pointlessness of this thread.