Basic manual flying is easy because it's intuitive. Even more so with all the fly by wire assistance. Operating an airliner and continuously fully comprehending it's state and various modes is a whole different story. For this reason I'm not totally sold on encouraging the distraction of manual flying beyond the takeoff and landing phases. It does polish skills but in practice they only need to be at a certain basic level. In my opinion it's an emotionally appealing argument but in reality the risk vs reward doesn't stack up.