Glueball
Your problems are obvious:
The MD11 has THROTTLES (not thrust levers) and only THREE (not four).
(All said with tongue firmly in cheek)
Spooky 2
to answer your question (ATS and X-winds):
There are no restrictions, either in FCOM Limitations or Normal Operating Procedures requiring ATS to be disconnected with ANY cross-wind.
Having said that, here is an autopilot auto-land cross-wind limitation of 15 knots (max) (nothing to do with ATS).
Huck
I agree with you about overriding the ATS when necessary. What I have experienced is that the younger ones have their eyeballs glued to the speed trend and over-react to the trend (not the actual airspeed variances) by use of a fist-full of throttle and then massive and fast throttle retardation, instead of letting the ATS sort it out, which, for 99.9% of the time, does so without me getting an off-the-scale pukka factor.