If you want good flying skills, make aerobatics mandatory part of flight training
That certainly helps. The problem is that it is manual raw data instrument flying skills that are degrading because of the accent on full automation. That is nothing new because it all started with the introduction of the first glass cockpits and ever more sophisticated automation.
Granted, these manual instrument flying skills may rarely be called upon in the career of an airline pilot. But, having observed countless simulator sessions where for various reasons, manual flying on instruments was introduced, there were some pilots who were brilliant and flying on rails but a higher proportion who lost situational awareness and simply were unable to cope without the automatics. Not a heart warming sight at times. And that's in a simulator let alone a real aeroplane.