It reads as if vilas was talking about a jet orientation course, not the type rating itself. The type rating, even in toulouse, is only 8 to 10 sessions and there is a lot of stuff to cover so manual flight does happen, but not all often.
The AP on FD off thing seems to be mainly a 737 thing where that is absolutely possible, although still not standard operation technique. As usual, a pilot should know how to operate his aircraft and if something like that is possible or not.