Hi Ford C,
I have no idea of your industry knowledge, I can only speak of my own experience.
Talking from my own experience: during the MCC when the autopilot was engaged the pilot-flying did all changes to speed and heading bugs so there was less MCC than when hand flying. When hand flying the pilot-monitoring made the changes to heading and speed bugs. This may not be the way you fly (or the rest of the industry) but that was my experience during the MCC.