Flight Safety,
as has been eloquently laid out by PBL, (have you bothered to read the paper he mentioned and done the exercise?), flat state spaces will not work for avionics systems as complex as are required to fly modern airliners.
As to the workings of the thrust levers: it is really terribly simple, and a confusion very unlikely:
In a normal flighth you really only need three positions. This flight was no different:
- FLX/MCT (or possibly TOGA in certain conditions) from takeoff to thrust reduction. This gives flexible (or maximum) take-off power and arms autothrust.
- CL throughout the entire flight from thrust reduction to flare. This activates autothrust, previously armed by setting (flexible or maximum) takeoff power.
- IDLE during flare.
During rollout you additionally may use REVERSE IDLE and MAX REVERSE.
I do not see at all why this would not be habituating. I fyou fly at autothrust, you leave the thrust levers alone, if you require manual thrust, you disconnect autothrust (thumb-pushbutton at the side of the levers, aptly named "instinctive disconnect") and move the levers as required. Simple.
And to repeat the argument agains the assertion that it is great that the thrust levers always equate to engine power: that can be so habituating that one might fail to realise that it is not true in case of an engine failure (there have been examples, cited just recently in this thread). Being used to looking at the instruments to gauge engine parameters instead of the levers, helps.
That is not to say that either design philosophy is inherently better than the other, but (again) to point out that it isn't that easy.
To strain the car metaphor again: some older cruise control systems actually moved the accelerator pedal, but many modern ones don't. A side-effect of "FADEC" for cars. Will that confuse the driver?
Bernd