HC and Crab;
Re-reading your posts on this thread I suspect you are thinking the same things, but from different directions. Automation is now a massive part of flying modern rotary and it carries with it potentially massive pitfalls. The last type conversion I did spent a couple of days on how the thing was bolted together, what the limits are etc. and then ten days on the automation. The sim was a day of how it flies, followed by several days of how to programme it. Line training was really about the automation (new type, same job and routes)
BUT, a pilot still has to be a pilot, he still has to be able to fly the thing. Every six months we all go through OPC/IRR which really doesn't cover automation, but in those six months unless a pilot has been practising how to fly without the automatics then his skill will fade to an extent.
I believe that due to time and budgetary constraints not enough is given on conversion to automation, and scarily a single pilot is then reliant on line training and crew room help. The other snag is that the requirement for OPC/LPC really does not apply to a hugely automated aircraft. That is the main reason that we changed training here. OPC/LPC as per the requirement, line training covering the rest, but a good chunk of manual flying in between LPC/OPC to ensure that manual skills don't fade so that when the automatics do go wrong it is not a crisis to deal with it.
SND