PJ2
Affirm. You know what you write about, and you do it better than most. I would sleep well with you in the cockpit because you know your systems and you know the what it is all about in aviation.
But I disagree about the "extremly rare circumstances". This forum has had many issues about technically inspired human factors, regardless of the makes. Far too many accidents have occurred because the pilots where not grasping the basic problem, confused by the behaviour of the plane and thus did not come up with a timely solution. Frozen over EPR gauges, plastic tape on the pitot tube, FMS route not being properly programmed, confusion about altitude, climb rate or speed selection an the autopilot, cabin altitude warning misinterpreted, you name it.
I am fully aware that human factors play a major part in these dramas, but we all know that ergonomics and simple procedures can save the day together with crew training, CRM and intelligent assisting systems. Pilots may be selected for quick thinking and memorizing complex procedures, but this ability has its limits as with all other professions.
I often had discussions about complex software issues. And I always voted for the simplest solutions, those where an operator feels assisted by the computer(s) and not thrown out of the control loop. Frankly, in my humble amateur opinion, the logic of the AB system to land a with one TR inop does align quite a few holes in the Swiss Cheese slices and the conditions that have to be met most certainly do not qualify as "easily understandable". And from reading the thread I doubt that all busdrivers could recall them in the few seconds that where left to the poor TAM crew once committed to land. Maybe the implemented logic saved a lot of other planes in distress. But in a fully automated plane i'd rather have my red button, possibly together with a green one for use in go-around.
The guys at Midway probably too, together with a lot of others that failed to stop within the fences.