Well, I certainly don't mind being proven wrong, but I don't yet understand how this works. If you're not simulating the motion of the robot, what are you simulating?
Perhaps I was over-generalizing, but I'll explain why I said what I did. The primary issues that stop me when programming aren't actually programming issues. What stop me are issues like mechanical binding or improper motor/gearbox selection. These aren't things that are going to be caught in a simulation for testing programming (nor should they be).
If what you mean by simulating is simply running your subVIs without the robot, then my view is completely different. Yes this will catch programming errors.
Unit testing is one of the steps anyone should take when developing software.