cessnapete, my concern was the inference that handling issues as you describe #15, did not provide any evidence linking skill levels to the current levels of safety.
Perhaps my point is better addressed to regulators who seek to encourage manual flight as and when conditions allow. Which turns out to be the less demanding low workload situations that do not relate to the high workload stressful abnormal conditions which often preceded ‘handling’ incidents.
The industry must change the way they think about flying modern systems, in modern operational situations, but equally think ahead about what further, unseen challenges of automation and technology will create.