I first left my country to work overseas in 2002 and worked at an airline (FO) were it wasn't unusual to find CAs hesitant to fly manually with AT and FDs on let alone raw data and NO automatics whatsoever and I mean in 8 8s blue sky. It worries me this is now across the mainstream (the west) and talking of doing that evokes something close to fear.
The idea that trainees undergoing type training have minimal manual manipulative skills is telling, it's an strong indicator that they have little experience flying full stop. It's also close to 18 yrs now and I guess a lot of FOs are now CAs and are likely to be just as hesitant about manual flying and that isn't worrying, that's frightening!