With a modicum of commonsense, it is easy for airline pilots to improve their skills at basic aircraft handling. On the majority of route flights there are many opportunities where turning off the flight director and the autothrottle and then disconnecting the autopilot, will not compromise perceived flight safety. Of course, you pick the time and place but it is a rare flight where the safety of the flight is compromised unless all the automtic gizmo's are locked in. But like I said -you pick the time and place.
It is my experience, however, that a good proportion of pilots are simply too lazy to be bothered to take the opportunity when it presents itself to actually fly the aircraft, rather than simply twiddle knobs and let the automatics take the aircraft from A to B.
While it can be a chore to fly by hand with the FD and AT switched off, this is a poor excuse. You have to decide whether you should maintain equal skills at both automatics monitoring and raw data hand flying - or whether raw data skills are simply irrelevant in glass cockpits. Ask yourself if a CAA examiner testing you for an instrument rating renewal would prefer you to conduct an NDB approach by basic RMI hand flying or by LNAV on automatics. Which one is a sure test of your basic handling skills?
Individual twitch factors come into play with some captains. Some mutter in their beards when the first officer asks can he please turn of the FD and hand fly a climb or descent. The comfort zone of the captain of the ship has been invaded. Others, more wise, will say go for it - within bounds of commonsense airmanship.
For some pilots the automatics are a vital crutch because deep inside they are aware of their own rustiness but dare not admit it in front of a junior. Arguments on the subject of automatics dependancy will go for many years to come. One thing is for sure and that is this blind dependancy erodes natural flying skills.