Skittles - couldn't agree with you more! I remember sheepishly following my Captain to the fleet manager's office (voluntarily) many years ago because we thought we'd done a REALLY hard landing. He had the data interrogated - surprisingly it was only a 1.4G landing! I was dumbfounded then (as I am now) how some pilots fail to notice a 'true' hard landing.
The FD conversation on this thread is also interesting. I found that only after I'd flown a large Boeing did I truly understand how to fly a FD on final - and it was this; never slavishly follow the FD! Instead take the 'hint' that it's giving, i.e. if it shows a 'fly up' command, just a gentle pitch correction TOWARD it is sufficient to see it immediately come back down towards commanded pitch.
While a line instructor, it was something that I tried very hard to instill in new Airbus pilots. As an examiner, I tried to encourage the adoption of same in those who showed a tendency to pitch inappropriately (by simply following the FD like their lives depended on it).
As for autothrust - I think the AB certainly does a great job of maintaining speed on 90% of approaches. It's when the 10% of flights encounter seriously gusty conditions that I believe manual thrust comes into its own. Sadly there are an ever-increasing number of airlines who mandate autothrust ON unless it fails - so it becomes harder to fly the aircraft smoothly in those conditions.
What to do, what to do?