Shirl writes:

The odds are NOT small enough that practicing the drill is more
dangerous than not practicing it -- there are, no doubt, many who have
not experienced it, but it is said that is isn't "if" you'll have one,
it is "when".

That would depend on the aircraft.

Airline pilots, for example, can go for their entire careers without having to
deal with an engine failure on an actual flight. Simulators are invaluable in
this case because they allow pilots to practice engine failures until they
become second nature, without risking an actual aircraft (which would be very
dangerous and expensive).

Piston-driven aircraft are much less reliable and so engine failures are much
more likely to occur. But still, practicing them in the real aircraft is
dangerous and potentially expensive. If they aren't handled correctly, you
(potentially) write off the aircraft, and perhaps the pilots as well.

Sometimes practice mitigates this risk by not actually failing an engine, and
simply setting it to idle or something. Unfortunately this isn't the same as
an actual engine failure, so the practice it provides doesn't correspond
exactly to the real thing, which can also be a problem. A simulator would be
ideal, but apparently full-motion simulators for these small aircraft are hard
to find.

Just happened to a guy at our airport after 30 years of
flying, with only 700 hours on the engine.

What type of aircraft?

And If that were the case (practicing being more dangerous
than not), it would be removed from the curriculum, ala spin training
that is now spin "awareness" training.

Does the curriculum specify engine-out training by shutting an engine off
completely?