Going back to the 60s/70s when on the B707 and then the 80s on the B737-200 we, more often that not, hand flew the a/c from take off to top of climb and then again from top of descent to landing. We wouldn't dream of flying a visual approach with the automatics engaged! We only got altitude alert in the mid 80s, let alone altitude acquire on the autopilot.
Because of this we were all extremely skilled in hand flying the machine to a high accuracy, so much so that we could almost do so in our sleep (we often did LOL).
Autopilot u/s for a night Tenerife or PIK to YUL (Montreal) and no engineers? No problem we can take turns and hand fly it!
Recently my new FO remarked to me after briefing a relatively simple SID out of a European airport "Gee this would be hard to fly raw data!" - I looked across and replied "We always did - very accurately".
It's great to have all the modern automation but, quite simply, professionaly pilots should be able to hand fly the aircraft accurately but they can only do so if they are practised in the art on a regular basis.