I think the axe is justified when Owlcat didn't drop the management system. The game would have been far more enjoyable if it was dropped or if was only left as a mini-game that you could ignore completely. Also the game was released in a buggy state where it should have stayed in EA longer.
Auto crusade : ON => 0 management.
Never but never turn auto crusade on. It's a trap option that will mess up your ending at best, and could halt your progress in certain mythic paths at worse. At least for now
This I agree with. Completely turning it off is not ideal at all. And the same was true with kingdom management in Kingmaker. Best is to set it to the easiest setting short of auto and also play around with some of the difficulty options to get an optimal setup. And in time there will surely be a mod that will give what some people want: turn off managing the crusade altogether, but while still retaining access to everything else.
