There's always going to be exceptions, I^2. In my experience, the average normie shooter would not know a good trigger pull if it bit them on the ass. One of the old-school training exercises was to have a student aim a gun at a target, and have an instructor or even another student stand to the side and press the trigger (thus teaching the shooter to accept wobble). The next step was to have the student do the same, but with their finger placed on the trigger. An instructor would then put their finger over the student's, and press the trigger properly, so the student could feel the pressure and see the results. I don't know how I feel about it from a safety standpoint, because I've only seen it in older books and pictures, and never in person.
The other part of the equation is how you do dry fire practice. Lots of people, no matter what you tell them, just point the gun at stuff and squeeze. You apparently did it properly--with a specific goal in mind: "I'm going to watch the sight before, during and after the shot". I think the other part of it is that you were completely new, whereas most of the time, people do a bunch of shooting and learn a ton of bad habits.
I work at it from the other side. I start with my eyes closed, and repeat good trigger pulls by feel. Once I've done enough reps to feel confident, I open my eyes and use a target (B-2 @ 50'), the trick being to learn the trigger pull by feel, and then execute it without disturbing the sights. It's funny--I find it does not help my actual bullseye shooting one iota, but I got pretty good at DA revolver in a hurry like that. Literally, from dumpster fire to matching my SA groups.
Are there going to be dudes that can learn from dry-firing without a lot of prior live-fire? Sure, and it's definitely more successful with more dedicated and fastidious newbros. But on balance, and without supervision, it's more likely to reinforce bad habits.