Don't mind me butting in on what seems to occasionally resemble a pi$$ing competition.......
There are merits and flaws in both automatics and hand flying. For an example of each - hand flying is a higher brain processing and physical workload (simply because of the continuous motor inputs & corrections required in addition to everything else happening) which might not be wise in very brain-busy or physically demanding environments, so it's nice to be able to enlist a robot's help somtimes. Automatics is dependent on fully and accurately understanding the nuances of what you are asking the machine to do, so if it's not doing what you want, you need to know how to sack the robot and man-draulically force it to do what you want. Ultimately, neither way has prevented accidents all together. And both ways are a backup to the other.
Anyway, kinda funny about the 777 control column thing. I would've thought a joystick is essentially a "two fisted" approach too. It's just that your fist is over on the side panel rather than your knee. In both cases your other one is on the thrust levers. What a strange reason for wanting one over the other! I'm wondering if that survey wasn't slightly biased by our inherent resistance to change. Most convertees between Boeing/Airbus I know get quite use to the other system pretty quickly, in any case.