It's a dilemma when you want to reward every post from all of the authors you like. I only have a couple on auto vote now as I prefer to engage, read and vote accordingly. Even your favourite authors put out something now and again you don't necessarily want to vote up 100%. I am going to add one or two on Steemvoter as they only post 4-5 times a week like myself. I found that my power was getting drained too quickly to Steemvoter as well due to some of those I follow posting 5-6 times a day or more.
I believe it shows it bit more respect to manually curate however I understand that some of those who use predominantly autovoting just don't have the time to manually curate everyone they follow.
A mix of both is more than likely the best way. At least that way you have the opportunity to come across mew adopters with lots to offer.
Great post buddy, thanks for the info.