Whatever pilots may think of this, as a person who pays to be flown I consider it absolutely unacceptable. I'm paying for technology that maximises my safety, not two tired pilots trying to divide by 300.
I take the opposite view. As an engineer I know that technology *does not* guarantee safety, more often than not it has the opposite effect sooner or later.
And as a person who pays for a couple (or more) expensive guys to sit at the front of an airplane and fly me round the world I expect them to at least be able to put it down on the ground without requiring the assistance of anyone/anything on the ground if needs be. Afterall, there's plenty of redundancy on the plane, and I bet there's almost none on the ground.
Ok so they do use things like ILS routinely, I've no problem with that, but "routine" absolutely should not evolve into "necessary". Furthermore I won't fly with any airline that I believe doesn't share the same sentiment.
Message for such airlines; making your pilots autoland *all* the time might save a bit of cash now, but accidents like this will wipe that out in one go and might sink your business altogether. Have a heart, let the poor buggers fly planes and do us all a favour.