Great post TOD, but I think the be-all intent of that automation in them shiny big jets is to turn you lot into money saving accountants.
There was a great post on these forums a long time ago that went along the lines of something like this: "The difference between fixed wing pilots and rotary wing pilots is that for fixed wing pilots the job ends when they reach their destination, whereas for rotary wing pilots the job starts."
Automation is always improving and getting better at doing all that mundane stuff. The goal of automation has always been safety and efficiency, and when it is all working I do believe that's the result that is produced.
Degraded automation is an encyclopaedic volume all its own where the pilot has to fault find, improvise, challenge, ignore, crosscheck, etc a system that he/she has little insight into it's inner workings. It is in my experience that some people are just miles better at fault finding than others.