Yes, I own two of them and they're very much a means to an end, as all the large ships are in my opinion. I certainly don't find them as much fun to fly as their medium and small cousins, but I guess that's intentional balancing by FDev.It's not the auto dock. The lateral thrusters in the cutter are weaker since 2-3 patches ago. Manual landing is also tedious.
As to whether the more recent thruster changes were by design or another unintended change by FDev who knows? They're definitely using the Oil Tanker Flight Model now though it seems