Lyman
I think the history is the key - AB was developing in the context of 1985, a truly horrid year for the aviation history e.g. Boeing had lost several 747s, part of the US 101 Airborne Div had been decimated on a MD DC8 at Gander and Lockheed lost a L1011 at DFW. The design philosophy was safety through automation, including "protection" against pilot mistakes. The marketing took a different twist, as competitive industry pressures shortly afterwards came to the fore and training/conversion/fuel cost savings became critical. The question of what airmanship skills were still needed in the (rare) circumstances (such as AF447) where the flight envelope degraded slipped through the net. The industry has not proceeded on the basis that automation training is a bolt-on to underlying airmanship, which is my gripe (as you may have worked out!).