Excellent discussion. I recall cruising at 35,000 somewhere over Europe 20 years ago. Lovely day and I advised the newspaper reading No 2 that I would fly manually without even the aid of the FD including no autothrottle and tracking the various VOR's on the flight plan for the next five minutes or so. He sat up white with fright and said "If that is so I must put on my shoulder harness." He was genuinely frightened. A few minutes later I re-connected the automatics and he let out his pent up breath. "That was nice flying he said - I have never flown by hand above 5000 ft and never switched off the FD ...."
I am convinced that most pilots who protest that the automatics way is the only safe way, are deluding themselves. Either they are too damned lazy to keep their hand in despite numerous opportunities to do so - and I suspect the majority fit this bill; Or they are simply incompetent for the task - they know it but would never admit it.
One of the reasons I `ve remained a military pilot. I want to be able to hand fly when the circumstances warrant it, and not be a glorified computer programmer/autopilot monkey.