I haven't been around for a few and haven't read all the posts in this thread so I can't answer everything, but I can say autoblogs work well if you walk the line of what Google likes to see and what makes things as hands off as possible. I do not remove link backs in articles scraped from directories, I don't take content from other people's blog feeds, I do a lot more keyword research that when I first started (and suggested; the keyword research really does make it easier to have success--less duds I mean), and I do not build every site the same way.
You do not need your sites to even look all that great. I have a theme that is basically a simple header with 3 columns (I know two would be preferred, but I set content in the left column and the other two are to make the blog look more like a blog while allowing more opportunities to earn) on a white background. It looks like a hot mess for the most part, but that hot mess sold a $1,200+ item off Amazon without me doing any promotion past the first couple of weeks when I set it up. I do NOT recommend no promotion; I did get lazy with that one and let it fall to the wayside, but I can say without a doubt that the sites I actively promoted/built links for performed better (as they should). Also makes it easier to see which ones will do well on their own and which ones you should dump on someone else to have better success with.
Everyone sees auto-something and think it's their key to continuing to be lazy, but ya'll have to see that it takes a lot of trial and error or a lot of dedication to a proven method to get to the point where you can be lazy and still get paid. At that point, you find that being lazy is actually boring though. =] I go bonkers anytime I give myself a vacation!
For the one question I did see here on this last page, the SEO Plugin accepts keywords with comma deliminator in list: keyword1, keyword2, keyword 3 etc. I put them in the keywords section (below the description); if ya'll use the plugin on your regular blogs, it is the same basic SEO concept. Auto doesn't mean you have to do everything different; just some things.
Best of luck. There is no exact formula. I still build sites that don't perform as well as others. The key is to keep at it until you find the formula that works best for you. I highly recommend an Amazon/Ebay autoposter; no reason to leave money on the table. And I don't remember if I posted it at first, but I use OPP (Old Post Promoter) to assure that something is always posted in case one of the autoposters stops working (it happens) by the time I get back to check on it. I don't think I put a whole list of why I use what plugin and I know I didn't put all the ones I use, but if you are trying to build a barebones autoblog, you can choose to leave out OPP. =]