Nightbird - I hear what you're saying but to suggest that manual thrust control is a 6-monthly sim exercise is perhaps making excuses for operators laziness. There is no prohibition in our MEL on departing with A/THR inop and it is encouraged that crew operate the aircraft fully manually when weather and air traffic cirumstances permit. True, there is limited aural feedback for engine thrust levels, particularly if wearing ANR headsets, but the E/WD is only a glance away and will tell you exactly what the engines are doing. Regular A/THR out practice will give crews the confidence to disconnect the A/THR and set meaningful power settings when the automation gets out of step. In the GF case it is futile to blame speed tape errors for the accident. Any pilot with hands-on experience should appreciate that in the event of an overspeed, pulling the stick back rather than pushing forward is the correct response, and in the event of a GPWS 'pull up' pulling back is the only response. The best way to prevent future occurences of this type of accident is to implement an operational policy which ensures stabilised approaches, rather than redesign the speed tape and hope that that covers the full range of destabilised approaches and badly flown go-arounds.