Originally Posted by
Sim King
is there are times when a student has totally lost the plot, can't get stabilised on approach, can't fly a hold properly.
I get, what you are saying. There were times, when pilots where seeking the knob to engage the autopilot as they felt more and more uncomfortable flying the bird. All I know is that a few operators changed their training syllabus and encouraged practicing handflying when realizing the degradation of skills.
Just a side note:
I've never flown the 737NG. As far as I remember, it was "very challenging" to engage the Autoflight system on the 737 Classic (EFIS) when out of trim...so...