Where have all the "pilots" gone? Long time passing....
Sorry to use a paraphrase of an old song, but MSB has a good point.
I have refrained from comment until I got a feel from the "heavy" pilots here.
Make no mistake, as a single-seater for most of my flying time, I grew used to using all the automation and "help" as the technology advanced . Except for a very short tactical flight, the AP was great and allowed me to use the entire "system" to reduce workload and get the job done. No navigator, no flight engineer, no co-pilot.
The biggest difference I have seen from my experience versus the posts from heavy pilots here is I never had an AP that would climb, level, descend, hold a set speed, level off altitude, and such. Never had a "coupled AP" for the ILS except for one jet and 400 hours in it ( manual throttle). Crude, but it worked.
I realize that training is $$$$ for the airlines. Gotta fly the money-making missions. But seems to me that a a few more sim flights and maybe even a flight in the plane in the real world would help.
As a systems engineer in second career, I like MSB's philosophy. The human interface and the human skills/experience/judgement is very important for the overall system design. The human in the loop is akin to another computer that is integrated into the overall system.
Am I way off base here?