I think that the best thing about using firepistons, flint and steel, fire drills, handdrills, and firesteels is that one learns rapidly that the spark or the coal is only the beginning. Without a proper tinder and kindling you will not get a fire.

Most novice match and BIC users fail to do adequate fire prep and never learn how to prepare a proper fire set when the conditions are a bit less than ideal.

Char, tinder fungus, seed heads, bark nests, bark scrapings and all the other things used with the more "primative" methods teach fire prep well.