When the Flight Engineer was done away with we said at the time that no one had analysed all the things that we did in that role. All they did was look at what we operated and computerised it.One of the unacknowleged parts of our job was crew "stabilty". That duty didnt often come into play but in my 30+ years on the flightdeck it came out a few times.
Indeed. Even setting aside the notion that one pilot or the other might be a secret maniac, the social dynamics of three people making decisions together are
extraordinarily different from the dynamics of two people doing the same. IMHO, there ought to be three people on the pointy end, full stop. Of course, I'd also like to see pigs fly, but that's a different discussion...