This has been a fun thread! What I want to know is, if I'm meant to adjust power to follow a glideslope, why do the manufactures insist on calling it a flight director
pitch bar and not speed bar
As far as hearing RETARD 3 or 4 times during the flare goes (common on an A/THR approach) it's possibly due to the pilot not understanding that there's a heck of a lot of thrust lever movement required before he gets to the actual thrust value - he thinks as soon as he moves the levers from the CL detent he's reducing the thrust which, unless he had climb thrust on during the flare (unlikely), he's not. As for manual thrust approaches, it could be a number of reasons but whatever the reason he will be compromising landing performance.
I'm with nitpicker and Bloggs on this one. Power/thrust for glideslope works well in small aircraft with near-instantaneous thrust response and little inertia whereas it's not such a practical method of maintaining a glideslope on a heavy jet.