The point is not to chase the FD's. When gusty and windy its a mess to follow them manually. Better push the AP to do the job.
Better still, switch off the FD altogether and simply fly the aeroplane rather rushing to engage the autopilot to save your skin.
In his great book "Handling the Big Jets" first published in 1967, D.B Davies, the ARB Test Pilot gave this sage advice.
"Do not become lazy in your professional lives. The autopilot is a great comfort, so are the flight director and approach coupler. But do not get into the position where you need this to complete the flight."
Today, there are common sense aspects to what he says and that means regulatory requirements need to be met where automatics are indeed required to complete a flight. Having said that, there are too many lazy pilots out there who are so out of practice at switching seamlessly from automatics to manual flying no flight director operation, that they are, by any definition, incompetent at their primary job as a captain.
