I feel that nowadays there is a tendancy to 'over depend' on the assistance of fellow professionals, such as ATC and on our generally splendid, modern, reliable equipment. There is, of course, a heck of a lot of good in such reliance and it's surely saved thousands of lives over the years.
On the other hand it's made the job a great deal more comfortable, less mentally involving and much more routine which IMHO can tend to lead crews into making 'gross error' mistakes such as the one that lead to this tragedy.
This remains a dangerous business, made safe by engineers, procedure and ATCers to name but a few. I for one will redouble my efforts not to fall into a similar poo-trap.