"And I have to disagree with hikoushi about manual thrust in gusty wind. It is exactly opposite of what Airbus recommends. You don't knock out GS Mini and convert AB FBW to Boeing it is not a safe way to fly. It is safer to change your company and fly a Boeing instead."
vilas, methinks you are trying to say that either the Airbus or the Boeing aircraft line is safer than the other, but I can't quite tell which one. Either way, horse-pucky.
I see according to your profile that you are a sim instructor on the 320, but have not flown the 330. In the training world it is easy to lose touch with real flying, yes? Remember the Airbus Golden Rule that it "...can be flown like any other aircraft"? The rule at the very front of "The Book"? Yes A/THR is the way to go most of the time; the FBW is designed to work with it and it all does a very good job. However, the 330 has very smooth and responsive throttles and is a joy to truly hand-fly as well.
GS mini is done doing it's "thing" as you descend through 400 feet. It does a great job of keeping an energy reserve and preventing excessive thrust changes. Below 400 feet, the GS mini function blends out. Your target speed becomes your Vapp, and with shear and gusts (big ones) it is common to have that speed drop to Vls and a great big burst of power come in, suddenly and without warning, slightly out-of-phase from the wind. Think back to your 747 days and all the inertia of a big heavy airplane, then couple it with the Airbus FBW and autothrust. This is where a steady manual thrust setting can be more comfortable IF you are comfortable, proficient, and current at actually using it. Barring the wild winds we are talking about here, the A/THR GENERALLY stays ahead of the speed very well AS LONG AS you have good pitch control (and incidentally if you have trouble keeping the nose pointing straight on a single-engine ILS in the simulator using autothrust, I guarantee you your pitch control is junk).
Do you fly the 330? If so, do you fly frequently enough into gusty winds to have become comfortable with them IN THE 330? Do you fly, and have you used, manual thrust enough to be as comfortable with it as with the autos? If not, does your company allow the A/THR to be deferred or MEL'd? Ours does. If yours does too, and your SOP allows it, I HIGHLY recommend you learn how to fly the airplane "like any other aircraft". You state that (paraphrasing) turning the autothrust off is "not a safe way to fly"; I sincerely hope you do not wind up getting an aircraft with the autothrust deferred and having to figure it out for the first time under pressure. Practice and be comfortable flying your aircraft at ALL levels of automation, as there are times where you will NEED all of them. And if your SOP allows it (ours does), there are times where you may WANT to have a little bit bigger of a bag of tricks to choose from that are all equally comfortable and safe, no matter what aircraft you fly.
Tailwinds to you and good luck out there.