Dozy, "Presumably not in the Biblical sense though -" LOL.
I've noticed over the years that there are very few pilots who have flown and know the airplane (in the non-Biblical sense), and make statements like, ". . . designed for incompetent pilots".
At the same time, I see that, contrary to what is known thus far by the NTSB, the B777 autothrust system is being blamed by a certain group for the SFO accident.
Chris Scott, I agree in re OG's and Air Rabbit's contributions - particularly helpful on the AF447 threads. Most pilots won't have "Davies" and so sources of fundamental aeronautical knowledge which is rarely if ever taught at the major carriers, are themselves, rare and I think discussions like this on a Tech forum are well worth the effort. One cannot know where this kind of technical discusson will go with new crops of "computer - generation" pilots who, if it is to be more automation as a result of unsubstantiated comments like, 'the throttles didn't work', soon may not know the pleasures of manual flight.