Svicar,

You are so right, the F/O's landings are never as good as the Captain!  8-)

The problem in simulation is the lack of certain tactile feedback you get in the real world. One is the sound along with movement of the auto throttles during the approach. As the plane nears the flare point you would sense the nose rising and movement in the throttles along with pitch change in the sound of the engines. The pilot flying always has a hand on the throttles during approach for just that reason, plus the go around paddles are on the throttles. All are clues as to what the autopilot is doing. Overriding the autopilot was never used during the flare in the RW. I doubt the slight pull (in the real plane) would do very much since for example it took around 40 pounds of force to override the rudder during roll out if you tried to move off the centerline to exit the runway. You would need to disconnect the autopilot in order to steer the plane. Overriding the auto throttle was very easy to do, and sometimes you would do that to smooth out some slight pitch oscillations during the approach.

Holding the plane off to get a "smooth" landing was a no no since you used too much runway (remember your doing around 200 feet per second.)
If the runway was wet, a smooth landing could result in not getting wheel spin-up as the tire would slide along on a thin layer of water, which could cause a reverted rubber flat patch on the tire, plus the anti-skid would not work until the wheel was up to speed. Actual feet per minute at touch down of 300 to 500 FPM is not a bad landing. The wheels are a lot bigger on the airliners than the tiny things on the F18 and if you watch the 747 or the other large planes as they land, you can see a lot of movement in the trucks as the plane touches down. The 727 was what we called stiff footed since it did not have truck movement to dampen the hit. Over 1,000 FPM could produce the rubber jungle.  :-?

Lou