A few lines to recent posts, I'm neither airline nor active, but had gained diverse quality and quantity experience over decades in the cockpit and the committees.
a. The committees writing SOPs should be controlled by active duty captains, not retired or beauroctatic, so their inputs stay in touch with the real world.
b. PF should be able following preflight briefing (and captain consent) to make any portion of flight he deems necessary, flown manually. On revenue flights, practice of faults and system emergencies should have clear guidelines, to maintain risk at safe levels.
c. I had long arguments and ongoing battles on such issues with upper management,who often due to history didn't comprehend the subject matter. I never gave up till I won, and the rersult reflecting accident free record for decades with 100,000s flights by numerous pilots of all skill levels. No stardust magic, just risk management.
d. I view the current situation as depicted by accident investigation results to be caused by:
1. Insufficient aircrew personell selection for cognitive, psycho-motoric and leadership qualities.
2. Insufficient training in 3-dimensional fluid flight, in flight in relation to other proximate aircraft, near envelope boundaries, and of non-routine complex emergencies, as in my military past. It provides a higher degree of situational awareness and ability to cope with the unexpected. Textbook is enemy when you recite every 6 months the same exact few standard phrases as qualification criteria.
3. Cockpit automation while nowadays reliable and convenient, is hiding many pitfalls to the unaware pilot, a result of information saturation, due to display integration and built-in system compexity. My only explanation to how qualified people can CFIT B757s when one airspeeed gauge fails.