I agree with the original poster. The inability to make a decent landing is a sign of lack of piloting skills.
This is the magenta line trend all over... Flying the ILS/FDs down to the runway and getting surprised when looking up.
The problem is that people are not looking where they are supposed to:
OUT THE "edit: BLO@DY" WINDOW!
The key to a good landing is looking out the window, and early on that is.... I'd say from 500 feet at least (conditions permitting), concentrate on airspeed indicator and aim point - forget the rest. But people are afraid to trust their vision (FODA ghost) so they resort to flying the instruments. Starting to look out the window at 100-50 feet is an inevitable "edit: fecal" landing.
Second problem:
Don't be afraid to cut the power a bit earlier than your colleagues either. It seems to be a rising trend at my airline to go for a greaser by leaving the power on until about six inches above the ground with a late or minimal flare.
So true, and usually it will be an even "edit: more fecal" landing, because the aircraft won't stop to fly. So it will be like 30,20,10, 6, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, *smack* - at the end of the touchdown zone of course.
Cut the power as recommended in the respective FCTM, for at 737 (and probably an Scarebus 32x too), it's 30 feet, not's 6 feet!!!
This is a pet peeve of mine and I wrote about it 10 times here already. A quote from one of my posts in another thread:
The opposers to reducing the thrust at 30 feet, have a fear that aircraft will drop out of the sky like a stone if thrust is at idle. It will not. My guess is that this idea comes from the feeling of the pitch down when thrust is reduced.
A typical bad flare begins with the a slight break at 50 feet, followed by another one at 30, thrust reduction at 10 feet, a touch down zone drifting hasty by below and a drop from 4 feet to avoid entering the FOQA statistics for long landings.
A good flare is thrust to idle at 30-20 feet, keeping the nose from dropping, almost simultaneously lift the nose the notch that the FCTM describes as 2-3 degs at 20 feet and another notch at 10 to 5 feet. Result a nice smooth touchdown in the beginning of the touchdown zone.