I really enjoy this one.
While I agree, it seems ridiculous that only four people on the entire ship are asked to undertake the training, I think they're suggesting that these four have a tendency to be belligerent, uncooperative and antagonistic. For me, this training is more about teaching obedience than awareness of protocols and procedures.
As you mention, Neelix is also clearly ignorant of the protocols but while he will do what he's told and accept orders more readily, the four Maquis in question will actively disobey them or just plain ignore them. It seems to me that their bad attitude is the problem rather than their lack of experience. Yes it's unrealistic to have only four crew members involved but then again, it was also unrealistic that everyone on Voyager was pushed to the centre of the ship in Twisted and yet only the bridge crew actually ended up there.
I did like Dalby. He was a cliche but worked well and who doesn't love Chell. Here's a characters so memorable that I genuinely feel he's possibly more interesting in a handful of episodes than Kim ever was in hundreds. He was only in how many episodes. Two or three? The young kid and the woman served their purpose in the episode too.
Like many, I would have liked to have seen more disgruntled Maquis crew and more Maquis involvement in general. This episode was a good start but it was quickly dropped which is frustrating.
I also loved the mini Kobayashi Maru (does it have a name?). The purpose of the holo-program is apparently to run away so presumably it isn't a no win situation. Maybe it's the Mobayashi Karu? Speaking of which, couldn't Kirk simply have run anyway too? Isn't that an option in a no win situation?
Anyway, I like this one a lot and tend to overlook the stupidity of it. If only the writers had seen the potential of Chell though. We could have replaced Kim with him and had plasma leek soup much sooner.
