There's no real harm in doing what they are asking, so it's hard to come up with a compelling argument not to do it.
My best shot would probably be to say, look, if we turn auto-create stats on, and async update stats, SQL Server will take care of it all for us. Now let's talk about something interesting, or potentially useful...and so on.
Paul White
SQLPerformance.com
SQLkiwi blog
@SQL_Kiwi