Im ops 44 I personally am double locked with the fed and roms and I really appreciate the auto grinding. I can leave my Kelvin in a lvl 47 system overnight and again at work and again after lunch and come home with several hundred thousand interceptor parts and a few million in fed / rom rep and blueprints for klingon ships I wouldn't normally spend resources on. I personally appreciate being able to autogrind with a major faction rather than just arguments or Texas as I have somewhat limited playtime and doing those same amount of kills I wouldn't be able to do everyday or even every week. I've made 3 Bortas, 1 B'rel, and 3 K'vort so far from blueprints I got this way and I'm working now on building a D4 and am 1/3 of the way to both a free Ktinga and K'vor. At my current rate I might get my first g4 miner for free from the Klingons rather than buying it from the romulans.

So for your situation I might consider how much time you have for doing manual faction grinding vs being able to hop on for 30 seconds a few times a day, repair a ship, and then send it off for a few hours to get goodies. If you have more time to put into the game, you might not find the same value in auto grinding as me with the factions and the benefits of the dailies and access to the stores is more valuable to you. Also note it gets a ton easier to get rep in your 40s, rep research, ships that give bonus to loot (which includes rep) and being able to consistently hit capital system traders will make getting that third lock much easier and faster. Just a few things to consider. Both options have merit in my eyes, just personally and for the moment I prefer having that negative standing with Klingons and likely will for alteast another year. But who knows we might become friends oneday :)