The problem lies with the perceived risk of hand flying, or in fact, any part of the flight where the pilot has a major input into the progress of the a/c. Reaserch accidents associated with Non Precsision Approaches. Unfortunately, we humans make mistakes and when they happen the business risk to the airline is huge. The business protects itself by postively encouraging pilots to not fly manually, because, overall this is safest. What it does not do, is allow for the outlier occurances where a skilled hand flyer will save the day. Catch22.
In our outfit we used to have a bi annual manual handling sim, this was introduced after another crash associated with mis handling. Unfortunately, we have now gone the other way and are on course to only visit the sim Once a year!! We are told that this is in no way anything to do with saving money. Really?
For my money, I'd simply turn the clock bac 15 years and add a fully manually flown NDB approach using RAW Data back into the Airbus LPC/OPC. If you could do that you were an adequate pilot.IMHO.