Most commenters, few exceptions, seems not to see any difference between "minor" releases and "major". The "minor" releases are mostly security fixes. Those may open a site for attacks, once the vulnerability is made public. So the "minor" updates are more important then the "major".

In a "minor" release there are no API changes, no removed or deprecated functions, no arguments removed or deprecated, no db changes and no new strings.

Automatic updates will not start rolling until there has been room for feedback from those who have manually updated. We should discuss how long time this delay should be.

Only automatic updates for minor releases, without "opt-in", is suggested for 3.7.

If, and when, automatic updates is suggested for even major releases, an "opt-in" should be discussed again.

WordPress may also release a 3.7.x update after 3.8 is released, if the 3.7 branch needs security fixes.

Many commenters seems to think they, or their clients, will be forced to have automatic updates. Almost nothing as mandatory in WordPress. Almost everything can be changed and tweaked. By the time WordPress 3.7 is out, and long before 3.7.1, there will be plugins available to turn off automatic updates, and from day 1 any developer or somewhat skilled end user, may define a constant in wp-config.php to avoid automatic updates, but still be able to do them manually.

So the "take away control" argument is moot.

The focus should be what he huge majority of users will benefit from.

So "I don't ever want automatic updates, not my sites, not on my clients sites!" is quite ok, for whatever reason you have not to trust updates. Nobody and nothing will force you. Same thing as for the somewhat controversal admin toolbar, that was introduced some releases ago. There is no "opt-in". But if you don't want it, you remove it through a few lines. No big deal. No "taking away control" over the admin layout, or the site, as site owner.

For myself, I do minor updates almost blindly on all sites, without testing. I know that if I would have to revert I would just install the previous release through FTP. If I ever came across a site that is so delicate, and relying on a security flaw, or a new edge case bug just introduced in the latest major, I would define a constant to make any update to anything not possible from inside WordPress. Until I had the time to fix the site properly.