Machinbird
I am still not convinced by this deskilling you write about. So far what seems to have been discussed is a perception that this is the case which may be widely shared but is just that - a perception. A lot of people saying something is so does not necessarily make it so and given that accidents due to pilot error have remained fairly constant with the massive increase in flights across the globe the statistics would not seem to back this up. I have no doubt that there are pilots who react as you say to the challenge of hand flying but whether this is a general case I am less sure.
I suppose what I am saying is that one must be careful not to over-generalise and to fall into the human error of thinking that things were better in our younger days. Military pilots were notorious (and probably still are) for their high crash rates but this is the price you pay for pushing the envelope as it were. The type of accident represented by AF447 may well have been impossible in your squadron but possibly your colleagues found different ways to have accidents? Error does not manifest itself in a consistent pattern. Where I do think you have a point is that 32 UAS incidents do indicate an issue that does need attention.