Am I the only person who flew the 737 and just deselected 'speed' during an approach, thereby putting the autothrottles into 'arm' mode (like the big Boeings), allowing full manual control but still having them available for underspeed protection and go around if needed?

Works great, try it sometime.

And to stay somewhat on topic, I flew the 717 out of the LAX base for two years. Loved it.