Trouble with all this automation is that folk forget, or are too scared, to hand fly.
This often stems from company culture where automation is firmly written into Operations Manuals. Thus we see individuals who actually enjoy hand flying to maintain piloting excellence, run into problems with the bloke in the other seat who (as you say) appear frightened of making a fool of themselves in front of the other pilot because their handling of controls is jerky and uncoordinated and their instrument scan is shot to pieces due lack of practice.
New first officers straight from type rating training in the simulator, will have experienced very little raw data hand flying since the majority of training is using automatics - even for simple flying, like a circuit. Loss of confidence sets in and soon the pilot convinces himself that twiddling the automatics and pressing buttons is easier than hand flying.
It probably is - but that is not the point. Someone who lacks confidence in his own ability to hand fly accurately day or night, VMC or IMC, is not the type you want up front on the inevitable dark and stormy night and the autopilot suddenly decides to go on strike.