Australopithecus nice post :-)
...to address the needs of 99.99X% of all flights. On a very, very few flights the sensors get compromised,...
In your post you do not specifically mention one of the 'major automation and FBW sales items', which might be called "continuous trip optimalization" (from the economics point of view) (which might contain quite a lot of boring 'continuous' fuel/alt/cost/eta calculation)."
Could we say that 'trip optimalization' is for the 99.99X%. And that for the other (100-99.99X%) we sincerely need to revisit, redefine and retrain pilots 'flying skills optimalization'.
Is there an open source publication that compares the actual trip optimalization performance of low, medium and highly experienced pilots?
Would be interesting to hear your views on these two questions.