We must protect the aircraft and it's passengers from pilot-error through clever automation.
So goes the aircraft current design philosophy. But of course this will never stop HUMAN-error. All it does is shift the primary cause of errors away from pilots towards engineers. Is it possible for engineers to write software that covers all possible airborne contingencies? Who is better placed to recover the aircraft safely when (not if) it all goes pear-shaped?
There has to be a balance between automation and allowing the pilot to have full manual control of the aircraft when he needs to. I don't think when have that balance at the moment. And of course the pilot needs to have the skills, training and tools to manually fly the aircraft on 'dark and stormy' nights.