Hmmmm....
All my large a/c flying was in 4-jets with 1960's-era autopilot systems, latterly augmented with a basic LNAV steering option. No autoland, no VNAV, no autothrottle above 180 KIAS. Using the primitive 'automatics' was often less simple than manual flying - and we regularly practised NDB let downs with just a basic RMI. Most crews flew manually once they began to decelerate in the instrument pattern towards flap extension speed; the 'Auto-ILS' was crude and prone to spurious disconnects, even handled carefully.
But such museum pieces are now becoming extinct. More modern a/c with vastly superior AFS systems, full flight regime ATS, FMS-profile VNAV and LNAV are now the norm. And excellent though they are, a different skill set is needed to operate them to their full advantage.
Which is fine under normal circumstances. I recently observed a flight in a relatively modern 'demi-glass' 2-jet a/c where, after a low-level 200 ft flypast, a TOGA was flown to level at 3000ft. ATC then changed the clearance to 5000ft. The PF (Captain) rapidly got himself totally behind the a/c; despite frantic twiddling of knobs various and pushing various FCU pushbuttons, he busted the level off by a good 400ft. This in a busy ATC environment in IMC at an international airport. Having mishandled the AFS, it simply never occured to him to go back to basics - disconnect the AFS, reduce thrust and level off manually.....
Had they not flown their fly-by but just landed normally, all would have been fine. But by doing something unusual, they soon got out of their depth. This is the hidden danger with such high performance twinjets at light weight; the AFS normally flies so smoothly and accurately that the crew can be lulled into a false sense of security - and then quickly get behind things when attempting something out of the ordinary.... Even something which should be very straightforward such as a missed approach and go-around under ATC radar control. Something which we used to practise all the time in our old 1960's-era 4-jet, but which is an exceptionally rare event in a modern twin.
So some old-fashioned manual flying skills are probably still needed on modern a/c - but they're best practised in the simulator, not in busy terminal airspace, I would suggest.