Was going away from requiring an NCOES school to become an NCO a bad move?

A long time ago when I first came into the Army as a young PFC you were required to attend PLDC, or Primary Leadership Development Course, before you could pin on your stripes. Even those of us that were promoted on a waiver while deployed had to attend within a certain timeframe or we would lose our stripes.

I was a fan of this system. I believe that institutional instruction was an asset to professional development. But when the Army moved to the Warrior Leaders Course only being a requirement to attain the promotable status as a SGT we lost ground in professional development. Over time you would have less and less institutionally trained NCOs developing other NCOs. I have found that the SSD's try to make up for this but I rarely find that anyone take these serious. They are more of a check the blocks than the gates to being an NCO.

For those that have been in long enough do believe this affected the NCO corps? Did the Army NCO Corps maintain their professionalism without going to the school house to be an NCO?