That was sometimes the case. One button automation. Other times it was frantically pushing lots of buttons on a panel, while rowing the levers. George would complain about being bushed from pushing all those buttons at the office all day, etc..
The ongoing battle over if a sprocket is better than a cog does run a kind of interesting parallel to this threads topic; it is like comparing apples and
.....more apples 
I wonder if Elroy ever got a "Sky Train" to play with? 
