I think I know what Willit Run is trying to get at.
If you fly manual with A/T on during low speed (e.g. during a visual)
and you get too close to the speed the A/T starts powering up
which will result in a pitch up.
If I fly manually from say 15.000 what I normally do is go to
V/S first and set the speed to 210 (clean) and disconnect A/P
after that. This way I can do whatever I want with the power and speed
while still descending with idle power.
but I will have some sort of floor protection for possible underspeeding.
Same with a visual. I go to CWS and set the altitude and heading for
go around and after that disconnect the A/P. The only thing the PM
has to do is select lower speeds when I start configuring.
We have lazy skippers you know, they donīt like doing the PM MCP part (or sometimes donīt understand what you say in English but thatīs a different story)