It has taken a quarter of a century for this industry to acknowledge what we as pilots said regarding automation when the A320 first came out - that continued ability to hand-fly and remain "in-touch" with the machine is an absolute requirement.
Except - and I know you know this - that the FMC fitted to the A320 was no more advanced than those fitted to the B757 and B767 which had been plying their trade for 6 years at that point. If pilot representatives had pushed that point aggressively at the time then is it not possible that an understanding could have been reached more swiftly?