You've kind of hit on the heart of the discussion there, jubs. Except for your obligatory name calling and needless provocation, you make the point that no one approach can (or should) cover all the bases. Just because Operant Conditioning is a valid approach in many training systems for many different skill sets, it's hardly the total picture, nor is it sufficient (or even effective) at training some skill sets.
Classical conditioning has its place. Operant conditioning has its place. Skinner didn't have all the answers, and neither did Pavlov. For that matter, there's a serious difference in "behavioral training" and "conceptual learning." Learning and conditioning are not always the same things. Not to turn this into a hack version of behavioral psych 101, but there are aspects of behavior that don't fit neatly into either model. Classical and operant conditioning advocates agree that a behavior that results from something temporary, like getting drunk or taking drugs, are not "learned" behaviors. Yet, they'll agree that people "learn" addictions because of the stimulus/response relationship. Lots of things qualify as knowledge without qualifiying as "behaviors," too. Calculus, for example, isn't a behavior.
Anyway, I'm getting off track.
The need to make a training method fit inside a nice neat little box is exactly and precisely the kind of thing that leads some people (who shall henceforth remain nameless) to say that "All MMA people have an attitude of superiority." The willingness to lump all people within a given demographic into a mass characterization or generalization leads to all kinds of errors. These are made ever worse when one is stuck in an incorrect way of thinking (mass generalizations that don't reflect reality), but who still insists on forming opinions based on several incorrect conclusions.
By way of example, I used to teach a lot of wilderness survival and land navigation stuff. One of the common mistakes people make when they get lost is they try to mentally change the map to fit what they see. In other words, they'll decide (rather than deduce) that they are at a given point on the map. They look to the left and see a hill, and in their mind, they make that hill look like the one on the map, even though the contours are all wrong. They see a creek, and even though it isn't there on the map, they decide it should be. Their compass says they're heading east, but they "feel" like they ought to be going north, so they ignore the compass. The picture they have in their head - their mental map of the world - is wrong, and so every decision they make comounds the problems they face. Little things turn into very big things, because they're just not reflecting reality.
Occasionally, it's better just to sit down, take a minute, and get your bearings. You have to be willing to admit you may have been hasty in building your picture of the world around you, and you have to be willing to admit that maybe your convictions are wrong. No matter how deeply you believe that the hill to your left might be the one on the map, you have to be willing to look closely and recognize that the contours are wrong. When and if you can manage that, it becomes a little easier for you to see that not all MMA guys practice with utter disdain for all other systems, not all Tai CHi guys are old people who practice for health reasons in the park, and maybe not all Conservatives believe literally in the book of Genesis (that's for you, Arieson. I know you're reading this...). Once again, it's all back to the issue of being able to judge each person and each situation for what it is.
Consider some of the drawings meant to show that different perceptions can linger on long after an objective observer would begin to see something else.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...lysis/fig2.gif
This one shows the face of a man. Most people "decide" it's a man's face and still see that image long after an objective observer would see something else altogether. If we can make such mistakes with a simple drawing, imagine what happens after decades of training in a particular way! How that must color our perceptions, eh?