Let's say you're hand-flying and you want to roll the aircraft slightly.
You have to exert a certain amount (it was more than a little) to "break out" of the CWS mode and allow you to move the controls manually.
Then when you returned to neutral, the CWS would kick back on.
The end result was the gracefulness of a hog on ice.
And here's the truly sad part - the MD-11 is a fine-flying aircraft, with wonderful, light controls. But because the CWS was so clunky, pilots would just leave the autopilot on rather than hand-fly it. Thus their piloting skills slipped into disuse.
I got so frustrated I'd slap down the AFS switches and kill the CWS whenever I shot a visual. My argument was that as PIC I had to maintain currency in all phases of automation - and CWS was most certainly deferrable. I needed to make sure I could fly without it.
One of my F/O's (who never ever clicked the autopilot off above 200') turned me in to the standards folks, and they told me to stop......
Oh, I forgot, the only other way to kill CWS was to hold down the autopilot disconnect switch on the yoke. But that made my thumb go to sleep. I tried to use a rubber band but that didn't work!