It seems to me that a lot of this manual flying versus automatics has to do with the philosophy being taught at the time.
When I did my DC-10 course, we were expected to hand-fly an ILS, with flight director to 100 feet and raw data to 200 feet otherwise you didn't have a job. The thinking at the time was that if you could hack an approach down to 100 feet then you would not have any problem flying down to 200 feet should the !!!!! hit the fan in anger.
It was often said to me that "we know the automatics can fly the aeroplane but we want to know if YOU can fly the aeroplane".
Nowadays it is the case that very little hand-flying is actually required during the course of an LPC/OPC.
Just watch this space; it is all about to change again for such organisations as the UK CAA are becoming rather alarmed at the lack of manual skills being displayed by some of our brethern.