Diluted manual skills is not the fault of automation; it is the fault of Flt Ops management and the training department, i.e. culture. That is obvious after comparing company cultures. More automation allows more efficient and perhaps safer operations: i.e. when properly trained and up to speed on the FULL use of automatics. It allows a calm relaxed oversight and management of the operation. OTOH the wonderful nav displays and large accurate PFD's allow more accurate and satisfying manual manoeuvring in 3D than in needles & dials. That was Skill + Art; modern EFIS a/c is primarily just skill.
Airlines want all flights to be safe for their pax; not surprisingly the pax want the same thing, and joining in, so do the crew. But when Murphy steps into the game the company & the pax expect the crew to sort it out, save the day and deliver them somewhere safely. The company has a duty of care to everyone & everything to make that outcome more likely than not.
Do they fulfil that? I do not think all operators do. I believe there is a risk management model at work which assesses that technology/reliability & robust SOP's have reduced the likelihood of a pilot not being able to intervene, in that rare moment, to very small that maintaining manual flying skills in a degraded a/c is not required.
What does concern me is when HAL goes awry and the pilot, in ignorance, attempts to intervene and makes things worse, and then develops a descending spiral which requires disconnection of HAL completely and the human to short out the mess. Then we shall find the policy wanting. IMHO the pax, and so should the company, expect the crew to be an insurance policy for when things go wrong. They've paid their premiums and expect it to pay out when needed. I'd be mighty hacked off if the policy proved to be worthless.