Hi Mustafagander,
Agree with your FMS technique. Haven't flown the -400, jumpseat only. But it looks like your Honeywell box is a lot faster responding than the early airbus units. Flew the 741 and 742 for four years without FMS and we did some of both on NPA's: hand fly and A/P in hdg sel and v/s. Hand flown NPA's were frightening if you didn't do them very often
Later with the bus, we were based at a field were an iffy Vor was all we had. Sometimes the co-located ADF was the only thing working. We became fairly good at these and all noticed that our sim NPA's had become easy. IMHO, the 747 automation had a more logical interface, was more predictable and caused a lower monitoring workload when coupled than the A300 series or even DC-10. "What's it doing now?" was a common phrase you heard in an airbus jumpseat with both guy's heads down and traffic zipping by the windscreen.
I'm not arguing a blanket statement for all models and situations that it's safer to hand fly a Non Prec apprch as opposed to a coupled monitered one. It's probably not. I am arguing however, that the proficiency benefit is of sufficient value that voluntary hand flying on a regular basis should be permitted as policy (at the discretion of the PIC of course.) In allowing some white knuckle driving, you could virtually wipe out these type of accidents that result most likely from over-reliance on automation. We lost two airframes due to guys being essentially afraid/reluctant to disconnect and get control early and then not going around when they found themselves high and fast (similar overrun accidents to the above.)
I question the tyranny of strict standardization where we must pretend that every pilot is identical in skill, proficiency and capability. Some come back from vacation and need to hand fly. Some just aren't very good pilots and need to stay practiced. A very few are natural flyers who can ride around on A/P for years pushing buttons and when it quits are able to hand fly 2 Eng Out NP approach like nothing happened. Most of us though, need the currency and gain nothing by fighting the boredom of supervising Otto.
I am also inclined to believe that hunching over staring at a slow, thirty year old FMS unit in the terminal area is unsafe. There's just gotta be a better way.
Cheers