It is, IMHO, our responsibility as pilots to maintain proficient hand flying skills. It is true that Autoflight systems are very reliable, but anything built by man is subject to failure at some point. Additionally there is always some contingency that the engineers did not think of, they cant possibly be expected to think of every remote possibility. Yes I know thats why there are two or even three of everything on board, redundancy and all that. Im sure there was also a group of United mechanics saying "they cant possibly have lost all 3 hydraulic systems" while 4 guys were fighting with a DC-10 over the midwest US a while back (United 232).
My point is only this, anything can happen, and if doing a little hand flying when the opportunity presents itself can make you better able to handle more of "anything", well why not?
Like I said, just my opinion.
