Manual Handling in the Cruise
Having read Handling The Big Jets by D. P. Davies, it appears that pilots were encouraged to learn to hand-fly jet transports at altitude and to remain reasonably current in this particular skill.
I was recently speaking to an A330/A340 F/O and he said that hand-flying at altitude was virtually forbidden because the aircraft was very sensitive, particularly in pitch, in this scenario.
I'm aware that in order to maximise various aspects of performance, modern jet transports are not the most stable aircraft but apart from software, what has changed in the past 50 years which makes these aircraft so difficult to hand-fly at altitude? Following AF447, I'd have thought that training and currency in manual high-altitude flight would be necessary.