Maintaining altidude or in an ILS I think we all keep path with pitch, speed with thrust, don't we?
Actually, no, we don't.
The point is that any change in speed requires a pitch input to maintain the flightpath. If you're any good you progressively adjust attitude during the speed change rather than waiting for the flight path to deviate and then correcting it.
Most AP/FD modes are closed loop feedback, so they have to wait for an error before correcting it.
All manouevres are controlled with pitch and power. The fact that in some cases you end up with the thrust lever either fully closed or fully open doesn't mean that thrust isn't a control input, it just means that you've run out of control authority.
I don't see the need to over simplify this into sound bites, its not like it's that complicated in the first place.