I tend to agree. Most private pilots don't get enough practice in IMC, including myself (and I do ~ 150hrs/year) so hand flying procedures is desirable.
However, the AP is there to reduce cockpit workload and that is the #1 safety feature in flying. I bet most pilots who made a fatal error would not have made it if they were not under pressure. Reading airliner accident reports makes that much clear. So many really stupid errors.
So if I was flying a very busy procedure I would go back to using the AP, including flying the ILS with it, to minima. Of course, one needs to practice how to do that too (fly an ILS with the AP), occassionally.
On long trips one spends most of one's time in VMC and a monkey can fly a plane in VMC, so then I use the AP 100%, disengaging it for the last 20-30nm of a VFR flight.