Thousands of hours sitting watching the machine look after itself can condition the pilot to revert back to that assumption when all the automatics are off. Specially if distracted by other factors (weather, troubleshooting, etc).
If controlled manual flight is a challenge for some pilots recovery from a departure from controlled flight at altitude is an almost impossible task for all but the luckiest, the very experienced in aerobatics or the superbly talented ( we don't hire them anymore though )
Unfortunately we are in an era where technology is taking over more and more. Even the Governor of Bank of England said that after university he joined Goldman Sachs and left because his job had become so boring as technology had taken it over. There was whole discussion in English DT last weekend about this change in life.
We see active cruise control in cars. Speed and distance control is automatic. We see automatic parking systems. Just look how lousy people are at parking, via reverse, especially tight spaces: as useless at any newbies and visual approaches. Rather than improve training the designers add new toys to mask the inadequacies of the driver. Technology is taking over so many aspects of our lives. That's OK sometimes as long as it is monitored correctly and we know what to do when it goes AWOL.
One other consequence of technology discussed was that older experienced people are being made redundant and then can not find work because they are over qualified or too expensive. Jobs are being dumbed down and so are the associated wages. If the qualifications and skills are reduced so can be the rewards. Sound familiar? The roll/skill of the airline pilot has slowly been diluted and so the T's & C's have been eaten away. And it will get worse. It used to be the national legacy carriers wanted university graduates from maths & science backgrounds. Now, that is way over qualified for the job of the future. I'm sure there will need to be a better matching of qualifications and capabilities to the job at hand. It will inevitably lead to lower T's & C's. Share holders will ensure that.
In the meantime I think we all agree the depth of training & understanding of systems has fallen too much. That needs to be addressed soonest. If all the crashes of serviceable a/c over the past few years have not alerted the 'powers that be' of this then they will be exhibiting a negligent oversight of their domain.