Boofhead
I agree with your comments in many ways, the fact that basic raw data handling skills are not implemented in more benign weather for the possible occurance of someday requiring those skills is an issue. My gerneral thoughts on it come down to a law of averages that "management" deem as a suitable risk. The term "affordable safety" springs to mind.
The chances of numerous factors accumulating to the point which will stretch the capacity of the crew has probably been determined to be so remote and infrequent that its better to take that chance rather than expose the airline, pax and acft to a more "manual" way of currency. Does this sound stupid? King oath it does! however with the high threat environments we now fly in with RVSM, higher fatigue, poor ATC (not generalised), high traffic environments means automation "is" and "will" continue to be the governing trait in airline operation.
There are many scenarios such as EGPWS and TCAS manouevres, RTO's and depressurisations that cant be practised in real life in the aircraft either and they will certainly be a different experience to the sim as well. The interesting case of AF447 is a good example. It wasnt until the initial findings about the loss of primary instrumentation that our airline and many others started implementing training sessions directed at such an occurance. What may have occured if more adequate training was provided on how to deal with that issue in the aircraft type?? we wont ever know. The guys could have had 10000 hours flying IFR raw data in a C172 but that probably wouldnt have helped them very much because...well....its just different.
The buzz sorrounding TEM is like CRM when it was first introduced....its a great way to implement changes for the sake of changes and also. But with everything, decreasing one risk by identifying it as a threat will also in some way create a more benign threat that will sit there for weeks, months or even years until one day an accident will occur and in true management style will make another change to counter that threat as well.