Is it all not progress? When I did my A320 course in Toulouse in 1988 ( course 4 I think ) not many people had mobile phones. I used to fly to Lagos frequently before that and there was no telephone service that worked in Nigeria. All of a sudden mobile phones arrived there and the problem solved. Should the Nigerians have been taught to use the old system first or was it cheating to use mobiles? We have millions of motorists using GPS systems and a good majority couldn't read a map I would guess. It's the same with ships that still seem to run aground/sink etc. There have been many aircraft accidents recently like THY into Amsterdam where they actually unbelieveably managed to stall on the approach. Technology will continue to make a pilots' job easier and it can't be stopped. Does anyone really think that Airbus are going to give up the sidestick and non-moving thrust levers. It's progress. The horrible truth about AF447 is that they didn't avoid the thunderstorms and everything that happenned after was a result of this.
All the talk about heavy crew, captain going on his/her rest at the wrong time is irrelevent as the remaining 2 pilots in control should have been just as competent as the Captain. The fact that they were not would seem to point to Air France training issues. I guess what I am getting at is that technology is trying to make the pilots job easier and that is not likely to change because in theory it makes the whole flying operation safer and that's what the passengers and everyone else wants. Gone are the days of us old Jet Provost pilots, now it's all autopilots, flight management systems, TCAS, ACARS and the rest of it. I don't think pilotless airliners are anywhere in the near future (passengers wouldn't fly on them) but look at the success of the Drones against Al Quaida.
I flew the Air France route more times than I can remember and it was always dodgy around the ITCZ but we always deviated the cbs by as much as was necessary. The reactions of the AF pilots was amazing by initially not avoiding the weather and then allowing the most junior of the 3 pilots to a) fly into the weather and b) allow him to control the situation catastrophically whilst the other co-pilot appeared to let it happen without questioning it until it was too late. The poor old Captain appeared when it was far too late, hardly his fault and whether it was a bad decision to have taken his rest at that time I would dispute as his copilots should have been just as competent as him. That's the way it was in the airline I flew for. Anyways that's my view as one of the first A320 pilots and a great believer in the product and subsequent variants ie 340, 330, 380 and future products.