The simplifed models work well with basic chemistry studies and allow students to understand basic reactions and their ramifications. The basic model works fine for a lot of college thermodynamic studies, also.
By your logic, we should not be teaching anything about the atom till we thoroughly understand the Schrodinger Wave equation. What year did you finally grasp that equation derivation?
I can tell you from experience, as my learning experience grew, I was not hampered with having to unlearn simple models. In fact, most of my career was working with only simplified models.
No the simplified model doesn't work well at anything, except wasting college professors' time by feeding BS to the student that they have to unlearn.
Once again with the extreme example that takes a point to absurdity. My logic is that if you don't have time to teach it right then don't teach it. It doesn't take that much longer to learn the way atoms REALLY are put together than it does to learn the lie. If we can't find that extra day or two to teach it RIGHT then what's the point of teaching it? Because you're not actually teaching anything with this model, all that's happening is teachers are lying to students and testing them on their ability to remember stuff they should never have been taught in the first place.
So you spent most of your career working with fiction, good for you, so does Stephen King.