with regards to the automatics sentiments, whatever makes my job easier the better I say. If you want to hand fly all the time, take up gliding or something.
I'll second that! It's not that I can't hand-fly a jet (because I can), nevertheless after being up since 4AM and doing a 12-hr tour of duty with four to five sectors, or maybe the SYD-PER-MEL "redeye" to quote another example, quite frankly I'm too knackered.
That said, I agree that over-reliance on automatics can be fraught with danger. An example that comes to mind is on descent to the destination (whilst already hot and high), only to be given track shortening at the last moment. I've seen more than a few of my partners in crime work themselves into a frenzy, with fingers moving at light-speed across the myriad of buttons on the glareshield as they try to salvage the descent/approach profile. All of a sudden, an already high workload is pushed over the edge - and personally I find it much easier to just disconnect everything at that point and do it the old-fashioned way (although that typically means the other guy is working pretty hard to keep up with mode selections whilst you hand-fly, but such is life).
On the other hand, I'm only too happy to build a circuit in the "box" for a late arrival into Hobart, as my faith in LNAV/VNAV at that time of night is a lot stronger than faith in my own ability to fly a safe and tidy circuit when I'm struggling to keep my eyes open due to fatigue.
In the end, I believe good airmanship dictates that a pilot be able to utilise EVERY available resource to do his/her job to the highest possible standard - whether manual
or automatic.