The Boeing philosophy is to have the pilot fly the aircraft where as Airbus want the automation to do it. Regardless of which manufacture's aircraft you are flying, the pilot needs to be able to deal with control system malfunctions. Engine fire/failure is regularly practiced and tested, as are RTOs and TCAS, perhaps stick and rudder ability needs to be looked at as well. Accidents such as this one highlight a lack of basic flying skills which is sadly becoming more common as pilots move straight from basic training onto highly automated aircraft.
Everything is fine as long as the automatics behave themselves and nothing occurs which isn't covered in the manuals, though in this case it seems it was covered by a laid down procedure.
This could have been prevented if any one link in the accident chain had been broken, failures in equipment, maintenance and flight crew all coincided and the chain held.