Going back to the thread, it's been my observation that airline training is governed by the cost constraint put on it by the bean counters. Over the years at my carrier (20 years), we've moved from the highly experienced ground instructor explaining the ins and outs of a particular aircraft, followed by written exams and a 3-4 hour oral explaining systems to an examiner, up to today where we have computer based training, no classroom sessions and a computer final exam that is multiple choice instead of an oral. We (our airline) is turning out pilots who complete training on Boeing jets in 6 weeks or less. The emphasis is heavily biased towards automation, which teaches new pilots almost rote memorization of switch positions during normal operations. Some pilots are so mechanical about automation, that things can go wrong very quickly as they don't have a solid background as to why things are happening if something out of the ordinary exists. I'm not bashing technology dependent pilots at all, it just a natural progression of technology that takes away the human brain thinking that is essential for flying an airplane. It's up to us as pilots to not let our basic flying skills give way to blind automation.The problem has reared its ugly head enough times to where one year our sim session was titled "Back to basics" where we would lose our FMC's and would have to fly a non-precision approach to minimums as some new pilots did not have a full grasp of basic airmanship. Later on in the session we all had to fly visual approaches using nothing your eyeballs and the VFR prompt in the FMC.
Another element of change that I have observed is lack of cockpit discipline, not that I'm for barking out orders to my First Officer and being an ass about it, but maybe in this pc world where we are afraid to say what needs to be said for fear of hurting someones feelings can lead to some serious consequences. One thing is for sure the atmosphere in the cockpit is changing, some part due to technology and some part due to airline economics, and it's up to us pilots to keep the aircraft flying safe and sensibly as pilots (and not systems managers as some in the industry would tag us). By the way about 2 months ago I flew with a brand new F/O on the 757 and had a total FMC failure, we had to dodge thunderstorms all along the eastern seaboard and had to do holding while the traffic cleared out of the NE corridor, all while this was her first domestic trip on the line and she did do a very good job.