there is a great reluctance to depart from the comfort of an autopilot coupled ILS
I guess that 737s today are different animals to the ones I remember ? .. some of us considered it a bit of a nuisance to use the autopilot .. anything under around half an hour's sector length generally was hand flown go to woe .. unless weather or traffic dictated otherwise. My first flight on the line post sim endorsement was MEL SYD (bit over an hour) ... the autopilot and FD didn't get a look in.
If nothing else the sector confirmed to me that the aircraft was easier to fly than the sim .. and the visuals were absolutely magic compared to the sim's.