OH man! That's a big bummer. I am seriously hooked on my auto-cut button. So much so that I made SURE my backup/travel machine had that feature, even though that meant spending almost double what I originally intended to spend.
Funny to think about how addicted we get to these conveniences. I love my needle up/down button, my scissor cut button, my default needle position... The machine I learned on was from 1954 and was my gran's "modern" machine, she called it that because it had levers & dials to set it for zig-zag and decorative stitches instead of using cams like the other one.