Generally I use manual mode because I know exactly what kind of shutter speed I need given my motion and lighting (avoid blur), while attempting to stay under ISO 500, as the images become poor for pixel peepers over that.
I think if I were to be forced to use an Auto mode I would probably want to be able to specify "optimization priorities" to the camera. Maybe "Keep the ISO low at the expense of aperture" or "Get a fast shutter speed at any cost". But then it's hard and unnatural to set up, than to flick a few dials and see what the screen shows.
It also helps that I shoot with post in mind, so sometimes I under or overexpose on purpose when I know I can recover those highlights and shadows in post. It helps to take pictures at diff exposure levels and play with detail recovery to get a sense of how the sensor behaves with noise when boosting shadows or recovering highlights, and correlate that to what you see in live view.