As a retired airline check airman with sim instructor duties, I noticed a definite erosion of hand flying skills when a pilot came from a highly automated aircraft to an aircraft where automation was only an autopilot connected to a VOR or INS. It was very obvious that flying skills erode when one is over-dependent on automation.
I always required two, hand flown approaches, one with the FD off in the sim and one leg with the FD off during IOE. Those who regularly turned off the autopilot below FL180 were much better "sticks" than the children of the magenta line who regularly gave the leg to the automation. Simple facts...
Use it or lose it.