For what it's worth most operators have a policy of not hand flying except for the take off and landing phase generally below 5000 ft and therefore the use of the autopilot (A/P) is mandated so to speak. You could even use the autopilot of an engine failure situation once you had the aircraft under control and flying normally and then hand over to 'George' to do it, usually did a better job. For jets the reason for this as you get to high altitudes you get into coffin corner where your stall speed and true airspeed are very narrow and the probability of loss of control from mishandling the aeroplane was very real indeed!.

I use the A/P most of the time especially for instrument approaches, but when I want to keep my hand in the I hand fly it. The 727 is best hand flown anyway because of its crappy A/P and Flight Director.