Why not float 'ideas' if nothing else on the topic? They can stimulate discussion.
Back to basics. Firstly - can the aircraft be flown safely by hand? If it cannot then it should never have been certified in the first place. Of course all jet transports are capable of being hand flown.
There is evidence that over-reliance on automation is causing accidents - particularly loss of control in IMC when the automation disconnects for whatever reason. That problem is easily fixed by practice. And not just the last few miles of an ILS either. Pilots should be encouraged to hand fly
for the prime purpose of maintaining pure flying skills.
Commonsense dictates the automatics should be used when landing in weather worse than Cat 1 ILS. Nevertheless pilots should maintain the basic skills to fly an ILS by hand. Where airspace navigation is based upon tight tolerances thus requiring automatics, then of course the rules are there.
We see on Pprune pages contributors advocating hand flying only in VMC. That does not fix the problem. Any fool can hand fly by looking at the horizon.
Sharp pilots know that hand flying up to 10,000 ft and during descent below 10,000 ft (arbitrary numbers) is probably the simplest method of keeping current. Switching off the flight directors increases scanning skills which is why hand flying is being carried out in the first place. If in IMC then all the better because hand flying in IMC is no big deal. That said, it is a big deal if you are frightened of hand flying. Time for simulator practice.
If automation dependency has you by the short and curly, then you have only yourself to blame. Of course there are operators that demand full use of automatics for every minute of flight and no leeway apart from take off and the last few seconds of landing approach. But until operators stop paying lip service to the potential dangers of automation dependency and encourage crews to hand fly in appropriate conditions (and that depends on the judgement of the captain) then we simply go around in circles waiting for the next inevitable loss of control in IMC tragedy. Unfortunately, I doubt if things will ever change and we are stuck with automation dependency.