Since my early years in school, almost 30 years ago, in the Air Force, every Flight Instructor I had, emphasized the need for planning and judgment with the phrase: "fly ahead of your aircraft".
I think that what's at stake here, is the complexity of the FBW a/c A/THR System, as well as the Flight Control Laws and Side Stick input system logics.
As I view it: The problem with this systems is that,
when you're in need of your full attention (for what's going awfully wrong),
you have also to "intellectualize" in step of instinctively fly basic skills.
As you said earlier (CONF iture)
Airbus has taken unnecessary steps.
By embracing a more humble attitude, they would have developed an even far better product, but now, by ignoring the very early critics, they are stuck in their technology options.
That's the hard truth and we, pilots, have now to deal with that.
Some of us, just accept it without mental reservations, others prefer to be more assertive, despite of knowing that AI will not take their argumentations into consideration.
What most embarrasses us all, is that those "lunatic ideas" come from
pilots within AI and AI a/c operators.
We're only humans and the idea that human error may be "avoided" by imposing automatic responses by the aircraft, may also be considered a human error, since those systems were also designed by Man.
TCAS, EGPWS, FANS, ILS, GPS, Auto-Pilot, Auto-Throttle and a lot of other systems were a good help and are useful tools for a safer aviation, as long as they are kept under full authority of the pilots. Regarding Manual Flight, I would tend to ask for a more strait forward approach and keep it simple and with a much more "honnest input response".
Apart from intervening in this forums my only way to push for a safer use of those apparatus is to express my concerns over certain events to my company's Safety Board and to highlight those (personally) questionable issues to my co-pilots.
What I can not accept is the simplistic idea that the Congonhas Captain just "forgot" that, to land an aircraft, one has to retard the Thrust Levers. I'm not Brasilian, nor a TAM pilot, I'm just trying to be fair and responsible on my understanding of what has really gone wrong. There is always a much more complex reason for an accident, than one may expect. To learn with other pilots mistakes and to prevent future accidents. Is it not, what this is all about?
Fly Safe,
V.