I've always cringed when people I fly with try to hand fly with the AT engaged. It works OK on takeoff for the most part, but on approach it can get quite ugly. Throw in an engine inop situation and it gets down right pear shaped.
I know the Airbus and 777 are designed so that you always hand fly with the AT engaged, but this is a recipe for disaster. It creates a really bad muscle memory and habit of forgetting about the other crucial aspect of managing your energy. This is done through your flight controls and through your thrust/power.
So either you are managing both, or you manage none. They both go hand in hand, taking one of those out is just opening the door to create bad habits - like not noticing a huge airspeed loss on short final.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating technology is bad. I think Airbus and Boeing both have some great "life saving" design philosophies. I just think that a hand flown approach should be ALL hand flown - not half. You would not attempt to autoland without AT working, it all goes together hand in hand. So why would you not require the same from a human operator?
Would be great to see regulators and maybe labor unions focus a bit more on safety and take a leading roll singling out bad design philosophies before they become standard. Would make manufacturers a little more keen at changing these bad design features. I've never been a big fan of Airbus' zero feedback controls (sidestick and throttles). But Airbus will never change that despite the number of accidents and serious incidents directly or indirectly caused by this feature.