Hetfield,
"Frowned" ? I don't care! I do about 50% of the approaches out of 10k feet manually, traffic and weather situation permitting.
Quite right.
I too take out the A/P & A/T on a nice day - perhaps not as much as you. My point though is it shouldn't be frowned upon, it should be encouraged.
If it's SOP not to do this most will follow it unwilling to break the procedures - it shouldn't be up to a few 'diehard's' to go against SOP.