Rat5 & Olster, two, simply, superb posts. I recall being discouraged from manual flying by a CP who stated that having paid huge amounts for sophisticated, high tech automation, they had a right to expect us all to use that facility at all times. I asked why the sim procedures (in those days) required manual flying skills. His response was that they made allowance for that. In other words, lowered manual flying ability was catered for.
My short experience in the ME was that the locals always tried for a soft landing. Eating up useful concrete in holding off for the soft touch-done was a common fault. I got very strange looks when I pointed out that one should always be able to achieve a good landing at the touchdown-point rather than halfway down, albeit, a long runway.
I seem to recall DBX having a slight downward slope. Guaranteed to result in a soft touchdown anyway. If it is true that a hold-off in this incident resulted in a 12 second float, no wonder useful concrete disappeared rapidly into history. Just take a look at your watch sweep for 12 seconds. Imagine floating for all that.
Don't buy the w/s causing an upfloat for 12 seconds.
Do buy the degraded standards, lack of training and high focus on going for the soft landing.