Our company taught us to always advance the throttle manually together with pushing the G/A button versus only using the button. You would then have the tactile feedback of the A/T taking over. Only then would I release the thrustlevers. Pm moniters power output, fma etc.
This was on Boeings and I retired on the B777.
There was a company tendency to use the automatics, but manual flying was not discouraged or forbidden. I normally flew the departure to above 10.000 and the landing from above 10.000, A/T off in all but low cat 1 and cat 3 wx. This depending on flightduration , crewing or crew workload.