We don't have any test automation engineers. But if we had them and they weren't better than us, they'd be useless. It does seem odd that many QA engineers aren't at the level they ought to be, but it's not surprising given the pay. I'd love to be a QA engineer, but advertised salaries are just too low.

I agree that manual testing can be a good way to develop domain knowledge in new hires, but it requires good documentation of the system and the steps. This is something relatively rare IME, especially in environments that don't value QA.