I'm not getting on your case here but your statement that the MD doesn't have all the flight envelope protection schemes...
FBW, such as those systems installed on the Airbus family, provide greatly increased protections over traditional aircraft, at the expense of course, of what the pilot is able, or in some cases, not able to do (Habsheim, for example).
Most MD-11 protections can be over-ridden by pilot stick and throttle input, several famous incidents come to mind. In the Airbus they cannot (reversion modes excepted), hence the old-school/new school comments. The NRT-generated sim training as described by Huck, wrt maintaining pitch attitude by visual reference only, is an aircraft handling case in point. In the FBW way of things, you place it there, let go, the aircraft won't budge until you place it somewhere else.