Auto-switching doesn't work well currently as the altcoin market is in a fairly stagnant phase. So you end up switching all the time and earn less in the end.

Whattomine is an interesting animal, you have to learn to use it. The 24h-averages are a good guideline, but what I tend to do is identify two or three coins that are fairly profitable and then look at the one whose price is most depressed currently. Then I start to mine that one for a few days, until the next pump. Then I sell my production.

If you're more into short-term and look at current profit/difficulty output on whattomine, look at the top coins and select the one that has the highest difficulty INCREASE. Most of the time, the top spot are occupied by coins that have had a big difficulty drop. If you start mining one of those you've basically just missed the boat. Diff will only go up from there. Pick instead one that has had a big difficulty increase and mine it while it drops back again!