Captain Sim wrote on Apr 25^th, 2012 at 7:01pm:

VNAV? No such word in the 737 Original manuals. And never will.  ;) People are so spoiled by the FMC...  :)

Agreed, I've been flying for 20 years, still to this day I know many pilots who won't touch VNAV on climb and especially on arrival because no matter what you program into the FMC, you rarely fly a full STAR into an airport and get vectored to final.. Either v/s mode or level change for speed protection and HDG select.. What I've experienced is the advanced automation has made manual flying much easier, and ANY airline pilot should be able to handle the aircraft manually in all situations if something goes wrong..