I have worked with 'experienced' commercial pilots who couldn't navigate without the black box. The most extreme example was unable to find the Continental United States from the near inshore Gulf of Mexico. He was less than 40 miles from the base he was working from, maybe 20 miles offshore. This pilot had been lucky for a hitch or two, always in aircraft with nav systems, and his luck held long enough to finish the day's assignment. Then the LORAN crumped and he was lost. The part of the map at the top that wasn't blue had absolutely no significance.
Years later, when LORAN was commonly deployed in that employer's fleet, I sat in a ready room with experienced pilots who couldn't approximate the lat-long to the base some had worked for years. Not a clue, those numbers were PFM. Punch some numbers in (most units had a 9 waypoint memory) follow the needle. Hold departure base into memory position #1, and until you changed contracts, you never had to handle those numbers in again.
Then, I saw a pilot come out of some real crap weather following the needle. I asked why he didn't circumnavigate it, his answer "I didn't want to get that far off course".
I work with pilots now who consider the GPS a 'no-go' item, some have worked the area for 3, 4, 5 or more years. For EMS, a fair few of our given coordinates are erroneous, the expectation of accuracy works against you when that occurs.
I work with a guy who carries and sets up his own GPS, in spite of the fleet standard 2-GPS and a moving map system- and official discouragement from using non-issue, non-standard nav equipment.
Since we've started using the gee-whiz cockpit, datalink, etc., I find myself inside even more than before. Perhaps with time, I'll get back outside as much as before, but I wonder- looking at obstructions depicted, traffic, radar, course line, etc., is mighty distracting. The med crew has certainly adapted, I have to activate the destination waypoint now, so they can follow our progress, digitally.
Yes, pilots follow that needle the wrong way. Seen it happen many times- GIGO.
Yes, the illusion of knowledge, electronically computed and reported positions, seems to reduce workload and make some pilots more casual.
There's worlds of difference between data and information. Generally speaking:
Hundredths of mile, tenths of a mile, even MILES off course, is data, NOT information. How you use that data nakes it information;
Ditto for ground speed, ETE, range and bearing to destination.
The equipment gets better and more idiot proof, but it doesn't replace a competent, cautious pilot.