I do agree that a gung-ho "manual above all else" attitude is not balanced either. However a proficient pilot has to be able to operate his aircraft in all available modes which includes no automation at all.
Since my employer is of the opinion the we are all rather average pilots he encourages to keep our manual flying skills up by using them as usual average pilots quite often get rusty when they don't use their manual flying skills. I have to say it is one of the rare things where i agree. It is far too easy to follow the lure of laziness into the realms of completely automatic flight, after all, its there to be used, right? And then one of these days the automatics do not work anymore (for example because the autopilot stab trim motor breaks down) and it becomes a very frightening day indeed when one of those pilots tries to do manual flight at FL390 without having done that for the last 15 years.