A37575....I like your thinking.
There was a similar debate on PPRuNe two or three years ago where there was a similar clash between the various generations currently flying in the airlines.
IMHO, there were some reasonably naive statements such as, "The days of switching off the F/D and A/T on a visual approach are long gone", and, "You old farts going on and on about manual skills....blah blah", and, "Flight management is the new world...blah blah", etc remain like a hot-iron in my side. I personally cannot fathom the ignorance of the importance of basic flying skills whether it's flying an A320 or a Vampire jet trainer.
I recall vividly flying an Ansett A320 as the F/O on an NDB approach into Kalgoorlie at night with a ****e-ton of information leaping out at me (from all that crap whizzing around on the PFD and ND) , and choosing to focus on attitude, snap-shot track (that's a bonus instead of heading!), altitude and the ADF needle with the F/D off (the youngish Captain was ready to transmit a mayday on that fact alone, I'm sure).
There are two points: the first is that I was relaxed because I knew the attitudes to achieve the desired performance (we learned those in Ansett way back then) and had that crazy old thing called a 'scan' (the whizz kids might need to google that); the second point is that if I tried to fly the approach with the A/P and F/D, I would have been like the proverbial 'one-armed-paper-hanger': even worse, if I hand-flew and had the PNF twiddle knobs, we would have both been loaded up more than needed.
One of the best things I heard from an old-bold was that Flight Director Bars are 'Suggestion Bars' – never a truer statement (particularly on a Boeing).
These days, I have a varied diet from ILS, LPV and EVS (google it, whizz kids) to totally manual circling approaches – and I love it.
My message is – embrace your inner pilot and fly manual attitude and power whenever you can safely do so; make it the norm when you are cleared to Angels 28 out of Sydney (and take note of the numbers) – the knowledge will serve you well when it hits the fan one day. All the digital stuff complicates the fact that power + attitude = performance. Your job is to know the first two bits; the rest is for show.