You old timers are the management and training pilots of today who dictate to and create the standard to which new pilots train to. So where does the buck stop? Training departments who are so afraid of management that the AP is the only choice?
safetypee; you take my thoughts further - the ongoing outcome that is desired is safe and stable approaches and landings. A one-offf is irrelevant. So again if the ongoing outcome of unmonitored approaches results in the same level of safety as monitored approaches then the choice is personal taste/operator’s belief and it’s not based on data, just inertia and possibly a sense of “we’ve always done it this way and it’s worked out well so far”.
The only large operator I can think of that does monitored approaches has had a series of reasonable high profile failures in procedures in the last few years - cowlings at LHR/RTO at LAX/Gear pins at LHR. Maybe it’s time to have an honest appraisal of the processes and frank look at what the desired outcomes are.