They do in fact have an automated system in place.  How do you think that, up until recently, orders were going through in a matter of seconds?  How were they able to process $50,000 worth of old, unprocessed btc-e transactions in a matter of minutes just yesterday?  You do realize that when the the API response says "account balance not sufficient" that is referring to Bitinstant's balance right?  It means they took an order and money from you for which they did not have funds.  

When they tell you "your order is being processed manually" it means that your order has to wait, because your money went to process old orders.  Your order must wait until new orders come in, and they will effectively misappropriate those new funds to your old order, just as they misappropriated your funds to previous old orders.  The problem with this is that if the orders slow or stop, many orders will never be processed.  Also, it means that somewhere along the line, a massive loss of customer money occurred at the company.

I would very much like to know how Bitinstant has created willful blindness on such a massive scale.  This situation is absolutely unbelievable.  You are being lied to, Dave, and the lies are incredibly transparent.  Yet somehow very few people seem to see through them, and worse, by attempting to defend the indefensible, you are creating confusion for those that don't understand the technology aspects well enough to see how ridiculous Bitinstant's lies actually are and don't want to believe that they could be duped.  The fact that they have not appeared in this thread to defend themselves speaks volumes, does it not?