One IMC night in 1990 - during a flight into the New York area - I was getting a line check from a company FAA designee. I hand-flew most of the flight, including entering a holding pattern and ending with an ILS approach to minimums.
The thing is, you're being assessed on workload management and CRM in these situations, not your prowess as a flying god.
By hand-flying from cruise, into a hold in busy airspace, and then an ILS to minima, what you actually did was massively increase the workload on your colleague who has to actively monitor every moment of your flying in addition to their other tasks. Have they flown with you before? Did you tell them you'd be hand-flying the whole thing during the brief?
So nice day, quiet airfield, relaxed flight deck - I'll hand fly from top of descent or vice-versa. When the external factors start to mount up, then the autopilot and flight directors are there as tools to be used.