I think one needs a general level of skill before stepping up to the cirrus's of this world. But they are very attractive and someone who has a few quid in the bank might just want one of these funky toys.
One of our group did his PPL with a chap who bought a Cirrus straight after. He was killed in one of the UK cirrus accidents. I'm not 100% convinced that someone of his experience would be able to handle a Cirrus just yet on his own- sure he could fly the thing, but probably not on a long bad weather cross country.
Relying on AP is ok, but, the chap in the next hangar to ours (who got his PPL, has some cash, bought a Cirrus), went flying and thankfully took one of the other airfield pilots with him. The AP had this wierd positive feedback apparently whereby it would deviate from altitude, and over correct, with each over correction getting worse and worse until it was deviating 1000' in each direction and getting worse. Some minor misadjustment like this could kill someone who needed to rely on it.
I reckon 150hrs and an IR and the factory training course and one should be pretty safe.