Right, it puts all the work on other things like the servos, pumps and other little fun beasties that wouldn't exist if not for FBW.

The F16 was fly by wire wasn't it? If I recall correctly, the 'wire' portion of many of the planes was severed from vibration and high G's. Subsequently, the 'Fly' portion of the vehicle was disabled. This usually happend when the plane was located many thousands of feet above solid earth.

There were no indications of a problem before this happened. Several planes crashed before the cause was discovered.

Is it better? Hmmmmm......