I don't fly the 'bus, but I am similary worried about the rumours that we will have to fly with the flight director on all the time, for similar reasons as the above. It also bothers me that some people think that disconnecting the autopilot in the London TMA is a bad idea.
While it is certainly true that there are a greater number of 'events' without use of the automatics, I think it is because manual flying is not practised nearly enough.
Those pilots I fly with who regularly practice with the FD/Autopilot/Autothrust off have a much better capacity and make less mistakes in all areas of the operation as they have a bigger 'capacity bucket'.
The above still has a tangible but less noticable effect in very experienced people, but from my own point of view MY flying got many times safer when I felt confident and became proficient at manual flying. It made me more aware of my mistakes and limitations and salvaged my non existant scan, which no matter how good your flight director is key to safe piloting.
I don't want to hijack the thread or creep it into a different argument, but I think the autothrust/FD argument are very similar.