In my opinion I think That FD sould be used as an aid to make the job easier, but never ever forget how to fly a plane, as a good captain once said to me "machines tent to brake and a jet is a complex machine that will have some failures", the FD te AP can fail, a pilot must be competent in flying the plane manually, if you can't track a VOR an ILS maintain altitude, attitude, heading, speed, fly any SID STAR or visual approach etc...he sould not be near a plane.