Great post, lederhosen.
I think the industry is on its way to addressing the decreasing/degrading skill problem - certainly simulator curricula are increasingly providing this. I agree it isn't the same as having flown steam though, and that my own experience on the Airbus was "informed" by such equipment. So confidence in, say, disconnecting the thrust levers is a skill that can go a very long way to manually flying automated types.
While in this accident there are lots of technical issues present and well-discussed which may/may not be contributing factors, I can't conceive of anything on the part of the aircraft directly contributing to the initial seriously unstable approach.
It would be a rare pilot at these stages of their career that this crew was, to know that 200kts across the fence is simply not going to work no matter what. Yet there is Air India Express @ Mangalore & Garuda @ Yogjakarta, and 15deg NU in an A330 at cruise altitude. All unbelievable, but not to the crew involved. Why?
How to break the "freeze"? Clearly, (but again, not to the crew...), this is a human factors accident in which recognition of & techniques for dealing with "tunnel vision" need independant investigation and then training.