My 16 year old son is a paintball madman. He does not see it as tactical training, and, does not consider it a foot up on becoming an "Operator" or any of that silly crap. He works at the park on the days he isn't playing. Plays for free when he goes, gets the paint at an employee discount and free air. Makes enough money to upgrade his own guns and equipment. He does not wear cammo. He wears paintball pants, cleats, a baggy jersey. It hardly qualifies as "tactical" gear.
Its fun. Its one hell of a physical workout. I occassionally will play with him. The dudes out there playing on the competative level, where my kid is, are freaking athletes. There is alot of technique involved and working with others. He maintains his own guns, tears them down and cleans them.
So.
Good physical excersise.
Outdoors, out from behind an X Box
Learning to work with others.
Working with his hands, learning about mechanical parts.
Competative challenge.
There is no down side I have found.
On the other hand, he and I go to the range on occassion to shoot real guns. He doesn't hose off rounds when we do that, he maintains trigger control and safety and, hits what he aims at...
For him, anyway, there is no correlation between real guns, gunfighting and combat and playing paintball. Two seperate events, and, he enjoys both.
(Ok...I don't KNOW if he enjoys Gunfighting and combat, he actually hasn't done any of those...but, he likes shooting real guns and is interested in the Military as a carreer. Either way, he knows there is a difference between them and paintball)