What? you never had an "adult" show up for lessons. I have had many 15 hour a year pilots show up at the fbo and need instruction.
Sure, I had them. After three years they had 45 hours. They just don't represent the
majority of flight students, the group into whom this student who crashed has the greatest chance of "falling into". Sorry. Bad pun.
I thought that the ratio of TT to PIC time represented someone who either flew infrequently or was having a hard time "getting it". Not specifically a "cause" of the accident, but certainly a lack of PIC experience is a contributing factor in a typical accident, and certainly when you have logged a whole bunch of time without being the PIC.
My last job was an SIC job in a jet. I logged a fair amount of "sole manipulator" time, and I could get in right now and make a safe takeoff and landing. Am I ready to jump right back into harness for regular operations and an 8410 ride after almost seven months off? No, absolutley not.
As soon as you get out of the airplane, your abilities begin to atrophy a little. It's the PIC experience, the management of the entire process, that makes you a
pilot. So, a lack of PIC time (in a single pilot airplane in this case) was a red flag to me, not a cause of the accident.
I found touch and goes were a great drill that allowed the student to experience the max number of takeoff and landing experiences in the limited instruction time available. As Avbug mentioned, one great reason is the rejected landing. Another is the fact that such a small number of hours in a pilot's lifetime are spent in the flare or on the takeoff roll. Practice is never a bad idea.
I learned to solo the airplane at a little strip that had a crosswind on most days, so airplane control was second nature. Since then I have drilled the idea of applying correct control inputs into students. It seems that this is what was needed here, in this case.