Either have the player micromanage every aspect of the game no matter how tedious it becomes, no matter what platform or input device the player chooses to use. Or Have the player have no involvement at all?
You don't decrease the involvement to help with the tediousness unless absolutely necessary (= the game is too involving). You simply move from one problem to the next (tedious>uninvolving(+still probably just as tedious)).

Yes, if you want to call it a world of extremes so be it. You don't fix a problem by replacing it with another one.

I prefer option C. a middle ground from both camps.
You don't prefer option 'C', as no such thing exists. You prefer the option where our involvement is taken away to fix the tediousness problem. I prefer the option where our involvement is not taken away to fix the tediousness problem. There are no extremes here. You can undervalue the scope of the change as much as you want, but that is irrelevant. The fact remains that it does take away from the involvement, and that is a reason enough to not change the system.

Will having a AA in place help reduce the feel of spamming of actions? YES!
Yes, because now instead of spamming you... do nothing. That is... such an... amazing... fix that I am completely and utterly baffled.

Instead of the feeling of spamming, we now get the feeling of not playing the game! And only because obviously there is 'no other, ultimately much better way' to deal with the 'problem' of spamming actions (a problem that the playerbase grossly exaggerates, as always).

will it dumb down the gameplay to a point of boredom? NO!
I was bored with the stamina system. I will be even more bored with the auto-attack system. "But its not so big of change to the worse, only a small one, so don't complain!"

How can you argue with that raw data and say there is nothing wrong with the current state of affairs of what is a tedious battle system?
"Auto-attack is a dumb solution to the problem at hand" =/= "There is no problem at all."

The combat needs fixing. This is not the way to do it.