Practice with dot to improve with irons?

These days being what they are I'm looking for ways to improve without ammo.  Dot sights are still available and I am without one so I wonder;

Does practicing some with a dot improve shooting with irons?  Can dot work reveal technique epiphanies and develop skill that carry over to iron sights that would otherwise be hard to find?

Or am I better off staying strictly with irons as that is what I am interested in competing with for now.

Per Jon Eulette, the dot better shows what's happening when the shot breaks. The irons force you to adhere to the fundamentals more, i.e. keeping the sights aligned through the trigger pull. He recommends training with both.

[Jon, did I explain that right?]

Dots help you see the overall wobble combined with the "miss" alignment and gives you one thing to compare (dot or target).  Open sights help you see the gun mis-alignment more clearly.  Train with both!

CR

i also advocate training with both, with a caveat: Treat the dot sight in a similar manner to the irons.  Place your focus with the dot sight on centering the dot in reference to the tube, like you would align the front sight in reference with the rear.  In both, look for good to repeat rather than errors to correct.

Additionaly, when dry firing, work toward a smooth, but quick trigger operation.  Too slow will lead to inappropriate corrections in alignment.  Work toward a hammer fall that leaves the sight alignment undisturbed throughout the operation.

I would add, if your platform enables you to use Crimson Trace Laser Grips, or if you have an under rail then Laser Guard attachment, then you can still use the post and notch sights, and the laser will "reveal" what really happened when the hammer fell. The difficulty is have the laser beam adjusted close enough to point of sights, but not so much that they interfere with the viewing of the sights, and that you do not depend on the laser as your aiming reference. Of course you could also use the laser as if it were a red dot type visual.

I will add that the use of the laser is very useful in instructing or revealing the poor trigger manipulation. Put succinctly, you can do things with a laser, that you can not do without it. You can even video the path of the laser during your dry fire training. It then will reveal the history of what happened during the trigger press process.