there are as many opinions about Flight Directors as anything else. I try to divide my time equally between coupled approachs, using the Flight Director and Raw Data.
If you solely use the flight director, There are times when you won't have it and you have do a raw data and you'll be out of practice, , and there are times that the flight director will give you the wrong information, thats why you MUST always cross reference your raw data when using the flight director!!
My thought on auto throttles, If your hand flying, turn the auto-throttles off. Why, they can be very sensitive and basically, your using two different brains to command the same plane.and they won't necessarily coincide with each other. The pitch factor with power changes can reak havoc with a hand flown approach, make it unstable, and frustrate the hell out of you!