AF447 was the result of icing causing a loss of air data, not automation, but it does have some relevance here. Pilot 'six figure salaries' and GP's bear none whatsoever.
447 was quite sad, never needed to happen and went well beyond normal pilot behaviour. There was never any need to go to those extreme attitudes or control positions and nothing about any of the control inputs that were made makes any sense. The fact that the side sticks did not give any feedback of the 'pilot's' inputs to the other pilot was also directly implicated.
BASIC aeronautical knowledge - Power+Attitude=Performance - every pilot is taught from the beginning, or at least was, that airspeed is a performance output which is the result of setting an attitude and a power, so, if you are at a NORMAL attitude with NORMAL power set, then performance will be NORMAL.
All they had to do was disconnect the automatics (AP, FD, A/T), set the power to where it had been for the past few hours (normal) and hold the attitude at 2.5 deg (normal) and also where it had been for the past few hours, and nothing would have happened. The air data would have eventually returned and then at that point they simply continued.
How could holding and sustaining full back stick at altitude for that length of time EVER RESULT IN ANYTHING OTHER than a deep stall?
Airbus seem to have tried to engineer pilots out of things as much as possible, and in so doing have made aircraft that are, in some situations, much more difficult to fly than they really need to be. Deliberately removing as much tactile feedback as possible (you don't need it, you can look at the gauges) and deliberately placing identical, dangerous, switches close to one another so that they look tidy or pretty is something engineers may like, but not pilots.
I think it was the chief designer of the A320 who was quoted at some point as saying that his aircraft are so easy and beautiful to fly that his local patisserie chef could fly one. Astonishingly, and perhaps quite irresponsibly, he seems happy with flying becoming a video game, and pilots becoming video gamers...... very, very wrong!