I've yet to fly a "new generation" autopilot. S Tech 30 is where I left off. My experience with older autopilots taught me to maintain my competence as a flying pilot (as opposed to button pusher) and watch what the autopilot was doing like a hawk. Ultimately I have found hand flying GA airplanes to be my preference for VFR flying.
I've seen a few spectacularly unairworthy autopilots (a part of my latent mistrust). I had occasion to maintenance check fly a Bellanca Viking (which is a surprisingly agile aircraft). I decided to check the autopilot function. It was not good. I found that when engaging it on the heading I was flying in nice straight flight, the autopilot would roll the plane looking for some other heading. When I finally had the nerve to see how far it would roll the plane, I let it go to 120 degrees of bank angle before I said "enough of that". I had to fly it again and demonstrate this failure to the avionics tech, who refused to believe that the plane would do that.
I'm sure that the next generation of autopilots are better than the suspect ones I have encountered in older days. But, ultimately, it's a human pilot who signs for the plane, not the autopilot. The human pilot has to be competent to operate the systems (or not use them), and is responsible for the safe return of the aircraft - no fair blaming the autopilot!