Keezy, it's almost impossible for you to appreciate the modern design of the Airbus unless you actually fly it, I think most of us flying it don't really appreciate it until they have several months experience.
I moved the thrust levers around for twenty years before moving to the bus, I don't miss those days at all, unfortunately the new type of airline operations makes it very complicated to just turn off automatics and practice hand flying, everything we do is monitored and highly scrutinized.
Cheers, D.L.