Pilots should be pilots. Don't let automation make you a stupid robot.
You are so right. But tell that to the tens of thousands of pilots who are so addicted to automation (or forced into it by company SOP) that some have crashed because they are so frightened of hand flying that they attempt recovering from an unusual attitude by pressing buttons instead of immediately disengaging the automatics and standard hand flying to get out of trouble.
Another example seen in the simulator is during the initial actions on a high speed rejected take off, where, instead of first rapidly closing the throttles, the pilot presses the auto-throttle disconnect switch (in the end of each thrust lever on the 737)
then before closing the thrust levers. That loses one second or more before the action of closing the thrust levers. End result is 250 feet of extra runway required to pull up.
At those high speeds, the disengaging of the autothrottle does nothing as by then it is already in throttle hold. This habit stems from the standard Boeing procedure for closing down an engine in flight where it says as first item "Autothrottle (if engaged)....Disengage"