Lower levels of learning skills take minutes and hours to complete, not days, and shave time off of other skills you intend to train. It's not like players are gimping themselves later by doing so, as it's pointed out for the long term it's advantageous to train them up as needed.

For TRIAL users, I can't see a point to them doing the Learning skills. IMHO, they should be training up whatever skills they want to be able to give them an indication of what the game is like, and if that means skipping Learning in favor of Gunnery or ship skills then so be it.