fc101,
Compared with aircraft where all pilots who fly the Airbus, Boeing etc are explicitly trained to use and understand those systems. As many posters here have pointed out, operating such aircraft under the given situations (ie: failure, degradation of functionality etc) is NOT a problem.
Having done scientific programming and software engineering for about 15 years, I respectfully disagree with you: for a variety of reasons, interacting with computers and computer softwares can sometimes be very taxing, even for highly trained and qualified professionals.
You find interacting with FBW systems easy, and that's a GOOD thing. However, I think you do so not only because of your training and qualifications, but also because these systems have actually been designed by IT people who have done extensive research of cockpit ergonomics and human-computer interactions!
As a matter of fact, I just googled for "Aérospatiale usability", and easily found a 300-page "Human factors for civil flight deck design" book. I guess there must be plenty other books and articles of the same around.
So, expertise in IT and in human-computer interaction is definitely relevant to FBW. However, the point where I disagree with patrickal is that I doubt Airbus waited for any of us to tell them something that is just plain common knowledge in our field... Something tells me they did their homework, and did it long ago!