Battlefield "get-you-home" modes do show what is possible and it is clever stuff. But we are talking here about an autothrottle system that appears to have functioned as designed. Unfortunately, it was not what the handling pilot anticipated and by the time the pilot monitoring noticed, too late. So this means that these pilots did not know how to do a manual go-around or perform a rejected landing. So has this been forgotten or was it never taught? And have these procedures been practiced by Emirates' training department and acceptance pilots in a 777? If not, something has been overlooked. What else has been forgotten? That aircraft in their fleet will not perform as expected means there is something deficient in the user. They in turn may ask Boeing why the documentation of autothrottle modes were not fully described or there again, maybe they were and their impact was not fully understood.
Talking of fully autonomous aircraft, the flight control software is only one part of the project and let's face it, what we have is still seriously lacking. With the exception of flight in smooth air through fog, I've not flown an aircraft where the automatics are more capable than Mk. I humans. Flight through rough air, windsheer, strong crosswinds are all situations where the automatics perform worse than humans. And if we want to take automation further, who will write the algorithms to determine where you point it, how high and how low, and when you go? We haven't got the existing stuff sorted out yet. Get that done and then work on the future.