I disagree. In the few emergencies I have had in all sorts of situations the only thing I need are my training and experience and the help of ATC. This is largely the basis of some of the training you will not have had if you are not a commercial pilot, the CRM course. I use autopilot for the cruise to avoid fatigue and leave me free to shuffle paper.
In fact in many really urgent emergencies I would switch the autopilot off until the situation stabilised, for various reasons depending on the emergency, for example in case control loads get beyond it and it suddenly trips, leaving me with an uncontrollable aircraft all of a sudden. Can you suggest an emergency in which an autopilot is really that helpful?
An autopilot is not vital to normal operations to an experienced pilot even on a long cruise at altitude. You should know this if you have an IR, as you are trained to fly like that! My point is that on the sectors flown in Islanders and Trislanders I would not even miss it, and will often fly without using it when I fly such short legs. Anyone operating longer legs commercially would have an autopilot.