Hi Mach.
From above... "Apparently the statisticians at his airline had built some sort of case that to do so increased the risks."
The statistician is correct of course, at any given time, manual flight is more risky than autoflight. Clearly, the case can be made that it is "Training", a more demanding regime than auto cruise. In my view, the ball is in the regulator's court, and it would take a pro-active reg to cause the lines to upgrade hand skills.
Besides nil, zip, and no chance, what do you think?