The irony, Vilas, is that in both Air France 447 and Air Asia 8501, there was no automation involved. And they crashed. Superior knowledge of the automation isn't much help when it isn't working and it "gives" the aeroplane back to you, for whatever reason. This industry bias towards automation is now unnecessarily causing fatal accidents. This is not a case of this or that. Pilots must now be good at this and that.
The further irony is your comment about CPLs doing EFATOs etc well; that would be expected, given their lack of reliance on the automation at that point of their careers!