I think front wheel drive cars were a godsend to the casual driver with mediocre skills. IE they are easy to drive however you will not see any serious performance car with front wheel drive only. I know this is a crappy analogy and I know our fighters are very performance driven and some of them are FBW. I do think our airliners need computers and FBW because a LOT of the pilots are NOT PERFORMANCE ORIENTATED AND HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO REALLY FLY. They have mediocre skills. For example the yaw damp needed to be off for landing the 9, you have any idea on a 2 mile final a captain would have the ball almost going stop to stop because he forgot what his feet were for? Maybe I am freakin old but it seems like we are (as a whole) demanding less of our pilots flying ability and decision making skills we are molding them inso systems managers without a whole lot of stick time. By stick time I do not mean sitting for hours watching the water pass under while drinking your coffee. I mean real stick time as in gliders, acro, utility etc where you actually have to not only fly but also know what and why you were doing it.
What we actually need of a pilot is a good mix of hands on flying skill, real world experience in weather, ATC, ICAO and relevant rules, and of course systems training and lots of time in the aircraft he/she will be operating.
Of course all of this comes with a cost amd the cost cannot be paid for with our cookie cutter approach, you know the so called flying academies which pump out pilots with minimal experience flying with no actual real world experience.
Our experience base now is retiring and dying, what are we replacing them with?