The post of VODE is very recommendable
I may have had the sheer luck of having a flightinstructor during initial (military) flight training who made me go to the limit every single time. The guy showed me every single sortie where the (safe) limit could be. It teached me the limit of operating an aircraft would be different every single day, be it weather, fatigue, aircraft limits, weakest crew member or hand flying skills etc...
The message where to draw the line is still there. In order to operate an aircraft "in the middle of the road" it is still important to know where the edge of the road is. Disconnnecting all sorts of automatics and doing a manual job is an important aspect in discovering how wide the road actually is and where on the road we are operating. As a personal observation, the road definately became smaller in the last 10 years concerning manual skills.