Regular manual flying without autothrust trains and improves your instrument scan including airspeed. Better scanning makes for better pilots, even when autopilot is on.
The Asiana crash in SFO or the Turkish crash in AMS are not imaginable with crews who have the habit of scanning airspeed continuously - a skill you aquire by regularly flying without autothrust.
Manual flight manual thrust in my outfit is the standard. And regular raw data ILS are done by most pilots as well, if conditions reasonable. No new FO will be checked out if he can't fly a raw data ILS. That is how it should be.
Still amazed that there are still a considerable amount of pilots or airlines who have not taken conclusions from all the accidents and incidents we had in the last 20 years due to lack of basic flying skills. Luckily they seem to become less and less.