The Cirrus has quite a lively roll rate more akin to an aerobatic machine hence flown in IMC it would take quite a sharp IR pilot to hand fly it.
I believe that has been improved on the latest machines.
Autopilots notoriously go wrong so it would be irresponsable to totally rely on the autopilot not just in a Cirrus but in any aircraft.
At the end of the day the pilot has to be up to the task of flying the aircaft raw and dealing with all the other tasks expected of a single pilot in IMC!
Pace