Some good posts and discussion in this thread.
I don't think anyone's mentioned this but this discussion reminds me of a (hang on...Google it now)...B757 Aeroperú Flight 603 crash back in 1996.
The crew crashed a perfectly good airplane because they allowed a failed static port (taped up during a wash the night before and missed during preflight) to confuse them enough to lose control.
Basically this crash was caused by the crews inability to recognize a simple failure and work around it.
Back to the OP topic....why do we rely on such old technology instead of some new digital technology? Because when it works it works really well and usually it works...it's a very reliable technology.
So...what about when it doesn't work? This crew failed to recognize the problem and work around it....Probably confused because there were multiple failures caused by more than one piece of tape. there are so many other ways to verify altitude and airspeed already on board....the GPS systems being just one of them.
The pressurization controller may also have been taped up but they could have slowly depressurized the airplane in an extreme case to verify altitude. An airplane can never have a significant negative differential so as long as the cabin altitude is say...ten thousand feet...the airplane is at least ten thousand feet or higher and that reading is from inside the cabin...it wouldn't matter if every port on the outside of the plane was taped up.
But...still....what was said over and over in this thread...pitch and power...a B757 will fly just like a single engine Piper or Cessna.
Oh yes....do a thorough pre-flight walk around too.