Given my experience outdoors with em, I can see their utility - in that specific situation. But even then there are some good regular varieties that are area specific usually that are superior. Anyone telling you the smoke is just as good as top notch regular shit is likely too inexperienced in the world of cannabis to take seriously.
Grew out Barney's Blue Mammoth (not a bad plant, but not comparable to good regular smoke either), a few La Diva (again, not a horrible plant, but in no way comparable to any good regular smoke) and an Afghan Kush Ryder. The AKR was probably the most promising of all of them genetically speaking. I only grew one and it was as good as my best TD, which was actually quite good (and if they all turned out like that one, I would have been pleased, although still not as potent as good regular smoke and you'll never see anything like a true high quality landrace sativa spring from ruderalis genes either I suspect..).
If you have free space in your veg area and have beans kicking around, sure, why not? There are situations where I think they are suited, but I think if you're growing indoors and you're growing autoflowers mostly you are settling for lower quality genetics for the sake of convenience.