bbman this is my take on it:
My view is that a instructor should be helping improve his students when he has them do something. Giving them something to do that "does not harm them" and provides moderate benefits is not what I would want to pay someone for. JMO. Doing something just because it was done in the past is also a huge red flag for me, mainly because of the rapid developments that are happening in the field. What else is he missing?
Looking back on my son's development I wish we had found someone like Cressey, P3, Gym Jones, etc, earlier and got him lifting properly sooner. The running he did really did not advance him much as far as I can tell. He had a 5 MPH gain last year, and while not all this was due to his workout routine, I think it was a big part.
As an additional note, I would not have my son go to an instructor who does not have a good high speed video system. As Kyle and PG pointed out you don't want to create throwing robots, but you can not see details in the delivery without it IMO.