You've hit the crux of the issue. The aircraft are getting complicated to the point where training in them -- especially outside of "normal" flight regimes -- is difficult. All the references to Normal/Alternate/Direct law are indicative of this.

Ever hit the wrong key in emacs and wondered why it was suddenly responding differently? Imagine that happening at 38k feet, at night in a thunderstorm.

My doctoral work was exactly in this field. Mode awareness, transitions awareness and autoflight understanding, especially in rare flight configurations, is a deep problem that needs to be tamed.

More info in my dissertation (never though I'd write that on HN!): http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/9172