Brilliant ponts Ratty! When I first converted from steam to glass decades ago, there was so much information in our lovely brand new Glass Cockpit that neither I or the FO knew where to look and what we were looking at/for. Clever Sim guy suggested something right at the beginning of the Simulator part of the course that helped enormously - we put the autopilot in and watched an approach from 2000' right down to an autoland. We noted attitudes, power settings, auto calls and all the other parts of a new machine (744 vs 747-200) including what the automatics did on the actual flare/landing/rollout etc. Don't just admire the automatics - scrutinise them and learn.
As you said Ratty, how many accidents could have been prevented by just setting a 'deck angle and a power setting' first and then - slowly - with one crew member just 'flying the plane' - try to troubleshoot.
