An ore processing system can do something that an auto-smelting tool can not: work without you. Whether you auto-mine or hand mine and send it home, the manual processing of ores is still manual. Many machine & magic systems offer rewards for processing ores.
So having more options does not degrade the other options. Remember that your play style is not singular. People play this game many ways. Some players even do this human thing called "changing their minds." They may think 3 separate strategies are cool and they use all 3.
I personally really like auto-smelting. I'll never use it because I don't really want to. I have no clear reason not to except personal preference. I don't sit around worrying about what other people do with auto - smelting. Good on them if they use it. I play my own game and welcome new options.
*edit*
Also isn't auto doubling via manual tools kind of old hat anyway? IJS
I wonder why you can be so snide and insulting, but mods don't warn you about it? Gotta find the Ignore option on this forum, I found it once...
It's interesting that you advocate people doing what they want, but if people say that an item is OP or imbalanced, suddenly we aren't allowed to voice our opinions?
If you think it's so important that people get to do or think how they want, how about you take your own advice and just reply like this: "I like autosmelting, but don't really use it."
End of comment. See? That wasn't hard was it?
"I don't sit around worrying about what other people do with auto - smelting."
No but you do spend a LOt of time worrying that other people think differently than you do.