fly the airplane. Use the flight director, but don't let it think for you.
Sound advice indeed. However there is little doubt that generations of airline pilots brought up on FD's are mesmerised by them and lack the confidence to operate without them in sight.
I recall flying a 737 to Guam in the Western Pacific and were radar vectored for an ILS as this was normal procedure for the military ATC. Weather was good with cloud patches on final. The first officer was flying and we had a new to our company but very experienced, former B747 Singapore Airlines captain on the jump seat. The aircraft was the 737-200 with FD 108 FD system. Not a bad FD for straight and level but in those days choice of FD use was left to the pilots. Mostly we never used it for an ILS.
The jump seat chappie was aghast when he realised the F/O was hand flying the raw data ILS and kept on muttering this was bloody dangerous. His whole life seemed to orbit around flight directors and he was genuinely concerned that the company he had just joined didn't use FD's or left it to the captain to decide.
That was over 25 years ago now and his obvious apprehension still stays with me. Having also in a past life conducted a fair bit of simulator training, I see similar scenes where even for visual circuits in the 737 Classic simulator, pilots use the flight director even though on many occasions they don't keep it programmed and one sees needles wandering aimlessly while the pilot rarely looks outside at the runway to check spacing. Others insist on leaving the FD with split cues using the pitch bar to maintain selected circuit altitude.
Raw data flying skills are soon eroded when pilots rely so heavily on FD usage. But that doesn't seem to worry some pilots who seem out of their depth without the FD as a crutch. Sad, really.