I believe the FD can be a hinderence during the V1 cut. You have to fly through them to nail your pitch attitude (10 degrees for my type).
We had a manual handling sim session a few years ago, during that time we did some FD off EFATO training. As a whole this was flown a lot more accurately as the FD was not there to distract, just rotate to 10 degrees, then at acceleration pitch down to 7.5 degrees, seems to work very well.
I am lucky that I work for a company where manual flying is encouraged, it still amazes me how so few people,when it is appropriate, take the opportuntity. I started this job because of a love of flying, and flying is just what I look to do (just wish I did it better!).
Nothing like doing the visual valley arrival into INN flying the aircraft like a big Cessna, it's why I signed up.