Andy Mallon on auto-statistics:
I’m not going to say whether I think Auto Update Statistics should be on or off. Instead, I’m going to argue that there are definitely scenarios when you want to have this on AND there are scenarios where you want it turned off. Can you really have this both ways? Absolutely.
I’m going to say yes to auto-update unless you know the answer is no for an object. But it’s nice to know that the fine-grained option is available.