The OP said that unit testing sucks because it can be automated. If your tests are so simple that they can be automated I would argue that they are useless, because you're not really testing functionality, but more boilerplate. You can usually skip underlying boilerplate tests if you test the functionality (within reason). Focusing on the right level and skipping the lowest level actually makes refactoring easier, since you have a degree of freedom at the very bottom left.
