If anyone can find the scene, and link it to here, from Space Cowboys where Tommy Lee Jones switches off all the computers and lands the Shuttle raw data, it would be fun to watch again. When asked by his nervous colleagues, Clint E, James G, Donald S. etc "WHY the hell are you not letting the gizmos do it all as SOP?" he replied that one day those gizmos would fry up and he didn't want to die for want of having lost piloting skills.
The techno answer is to add more and more backups and fail safes. OK, that's all fine, but when they do fry up, or some mouse has chewed the wiring, or ice gets where it ain't supposed to get, (nature always has a way of fighting back), even real bugs get where they ain't supposed to, the the fare paying pax expect us to sort it out and get them home safe. They don't expect a frenzied guessing game at what has gone wrong and more guessing about what to do about it. There have been so many incidents, that became accidents, which were not in the QRH. Flying a/c hit the deck. Perhaps that's why they deteriorated into accidents. The subtle slow failures. Just think of the Air Trans A330. Great flying after, perhaps, not too much thinking and monitoring had caused the problem in the first place. (OK, the root cause was an engineering screw up).
Sadly, I don't think we'll see a reversal in policy for a long time. I hope this topic only applies to the big jet jockies. I hope the regional turbo/piston guys can still pole it around like a good'n. I was amazed to hear that none of my recently qualified F/O's, from integrated courses, had been upside down in their training. There is the time to learn spacial dis-orientation, in the flying school. I did U.P's before aero training. Close your eyes and the QFI would lurch the a/c into who knows what attitude, and you had to open eyes and recover. It was fun, and then onto some real aeros. All that has gone. All training is now not to go anywhere near those places. But what a lost opportunity in those early days of training.
The skillful pilot is one who uses his skill to avoid situations where he needs to be ace of the base; BUT is also able to handle it when put there by forces not under his control.
It's been a long, much repeated, circular discussion over many threads. It will re-appear again, and continue on its circular path. I do not see where the motivation and driving force will come from to change anything.