> Auto-updating rather than re-cloning and dragging files back into your project

That's the least usable way to do it, though. Use static library projects in submodules and a workspace/nested projects, and updated submodules will Just Work (unless there are breaking API changes, but Cocoapods can't help you there).

The main advantage of Cocoapods is shared dependencies. If you don't have those, it doesn't offer you much besides a non-git-native way to manage dependencies. Also, not having to manually edit your Xcode project to get the correct, single component path (instead of an absurd relative one) for a static library after changing to BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR (why this has never been fixed, I have no idea).