What in the world are you guys talking about "d/c the A/T at any time" ??? what does that give you? CLB thrust when you want to decend? Manual thrust?. how is this rectifying the fact that the A/T provides no feedback, keeps you effectivly out of the loop and does not give any early warning of an A/T failure?
What are we talking about? Something you may not know anything about. When the AT is disconnected, you can move the throttles through the arc just like on the Boeing.
Out of the loop? How? Are you solely dependent on throttle movement for your cues? If so.. not good.
When instructing in the -300, I used to induce a governor failure with the AT engaged. The thrust lever on the engine with the failure would retard to idle to try and control the thrust. When that failed with the AP on and in an LNAV/VNAV mode, the second thrust lever would then come back to idle to try and maintain the commanded speed. THEN when the crew finally looked at the instruments or when the red dot illuminated showing the engine WAY over normal temp and %RPM, they would disconnect the AP and what a fun time that was..
Anyway, it is just an airplane with different systems. And if you really want to jump on failures, you may go research the 777 that had the software failure a few years ago.