bit of thread drift:
12.5 is no holy number. at the end of the day you have to satisfy the regulations by crossing the threshold at V2 and 35ft minimum by flying whatever pitch that requires.
12.5 is for TOGA at medium weights. Other combinations of Flex, Weight and Vspeed optimization will require an adapted pitch. 10 deg will get you airborne at typical weight and flex without scraping the tail off.
I am very much in favour of manual flying. And I encourage all my F/O's to hand-fly as much as they want to under not too busy conditions.
My basic conviction is that any linepilot should be ABLE to fly a raw-data approach with manual thrust down to minimums at the operating limitation (xwind) of the a/c.
Would it be wise to this actually? Big No!! But you have to be ready to do it one day when things quit and raw data is the only thing left! So what better opportunity than to practice rawdata flying when the weather is nice with all the systems working normally?? It is your professional obligation to maintain and/or improve your manual skills! (also it is more fun and gives you more job satisfaction) And you know what you'd do when you become overloaded? Just connect the automatics again!! Win-win situation, risk-free!
I had an F/O one day telling me he would like to do some manual flying. Then at 1000ft RA with the AP still in I asked him about the manual flying. So he replied that it would not be wise to take the AP out now, as the landing clearance was not received yet!! In case of G/A blablablabla Hahaha. It makes me laugh, but cry at the same time. I've also flown with F/O's who were hesitant to accept a visual approach approach in CAVOK, no terrain and opted for the full procedural ILS as they were not confident; not having done any visual approach since line-training!! Ridiculous! A visual approach is a normal procedure in the SOP and it saves a lot of fuel and time!!
I hate to bash one specific country. But most if not all of the problems are with pilots from a specific Island. Pilots from continental Europe tend to be much more hands-on and less worried about liability and risk mitigation and actually like to fly the a/c!!
O.D.