Auto darkening sucks, even the expensive hoods loose sight of the arc in certain situations like TIG pipe welding, and go bright. Plus regardless of how good it is, there is a delay. If you're starting and stopping a lot, by the end of the day your eyes will feel all dried out from arc flash. I use a real helmet with a #11 filter plate usually.
My main hood is a Huntsman 14529, it's a vulcanized fiber hood. Plastic melts in hot spaces, plus it's a really low profile and large window so I can see well in odd positions.
I have the cheapo HD hood at home for weekend projects. It works, and if the kids trash it I'm not too upset.