Where do you get that idea? My company requires (in the OM) that crews will take full advantage of "the toys" to the appropriate level of automation for the situation.

In the early 1990's whilst inbound to HKG, (Kai Tak), I overheard a United 747 crossing the FIR boundary and be cleared to "TD and expect vectoring for the CC NDB approach to R13". The IGS was out for 3 days and R31 tailwind over limits. The CC NDB approach was a series of figure 8's to let down to a point where, if visual at the minima, the R13 lead in strobes were visible and a visual approach to the runway to follow. The United came back with a slow Texas drawl.." say what ma'am" ,, ATC explained what was involved but United made a request for " vectors to Taipei" explaining he had not done an NDB for over 20 years. All the way across the pacific to end up in Taiwan.

Loss of Basic skills???? been happening for awhile

cessnapete, OMG,what has the world come to!!

Caution --- Thread drift --- at least in part.
I remember the Chung Chow (CC) NDB so well, and the full procedure would only be needed when the weather was foul, low ceiling and rain --- which is what caused the out of limits tail wind component on RW31.
Back to the thread --- as we have seen on a number of occasions in recent, manual flying ability has saved the day (including twice on QF A330) , so what should be the "company policy"?
To accept that the loss of an aircraft due to "modern" philosophies on "flight deck management" is a reasonable response in cost/benefit terms.
Finally, "company policy" that seeks to limit the authority of the pilot in command is ultra vires, (in every jurisdiction, in which I have worked, and that is quite a few) but sadly, the company ability to enforce such policies by firing a pilot is a compelling argument.
Tootle pip!!

Sorry, I should have been clearer. Sim eval for recruitment not for operating crew. My point was during recruitment, candidates are required to demonstrate their instrument flying skills via the sim yet many will rarely ever get to demonstrate this skill in everyday operations. I have heard sim trainers comment numerous times how an applicant could fly the aircraft far better than some of the guys on the line.
So....prove to us you have sufficient instrument technique (plus ability to learn) and once we put you in the pointy bit those wonderful skills you demonstrated will start to slowly rust away because you will be forced to use automation. It's sad to see hands-on piloting skills degrade over time.
Litigation has stuffed everything unfortunately.

Absolutely...

neville et al,
And the result ----- HCPT-wise, the result in this "automatic" day and age, is that pilot in-flight loss of control is top of the list, or No.2 on many regulator's lists of major threats to aviation risk minimization (aka air safety)
This was not the case in the "bad old days", when pilots could demonstrate their ability to hand -fly their aeroplane in every corner of the flight envelope.
See, among other places, FAA, NTSB and Flight Safety Foundation web sites.
Even Airbus (see A350 training syllabus and associated explanatory material) have finally realized pilots must be able to "fly the aeroplane".
Tootle pip!!