Air crashes

I've studied quite a lot of air crashes over the years, as well as tv documentaries and books I've had the benefit of reading the proper accident reports of many crashes.  There's a fairly common theme in many.  It seems once the flight crew come off the automated part of the flight, unless it's a normal landing they tend to have issues
It seems that the crews in many cases simply can't fly the plane manually if there's any kind of problem.  I think they've got so used to the computer doing it all when it comes to a problem they forget even basic things about actually flying the aircraft, they don't watch the instruments, they often even forget which way the controls work (pulling back the stick to gain speed for example) 
In a recent case I saw a 747 had a simple engine problem and the crew lost control trying to fly on 3 engines, something the 747 is quite capable of doing.  Yet during WW2 poorly trained pilots with only a few hundred hours often flew back from bombing missions shot up and on 2 of their 4 engines, yet one would expect a properly well trained modern crew with thousands of hours to do a lot better. 
My suggestion (and it's a risky strategy)  is to have the crews fly most of the flight manually, at least that way they'll get used to actually flying the aircraft.