We are pilots aren't we?
I can't belive what is being said on this thread! We are pilots and pilots fly airplanes. If they want computer operators they can hire monkeys to push bottons and pay them far less than even we make.
I was most recently at a US airline that had a superior training department. In fact the last time we killed any of our passengers that was atribtuted to pilot error or airline procedures was 1974. We were very good. Having said that we were not allowed to use the autopilot at all during recurrent sim sessions and the line pilots did just fine. Also the airline encourged the pilots to try different ideas out on the line each month. Like take-off without the flight directors or swithing the FD from the cross hairs to the bat-bars for each leg. On line checks the check airman would reach over and turn the A/P off and the flight directors off and say fly, yes that is fly the airplane. What a noval idea!
I can't believe that "most" airlines require its pilots to use the automation nowadays. The only reason that an airline would even publish that is maybe for the lawyers to cover themselves from a lawsuit.