The 4 "Automatic" patent guns I've handled have all displayed best quality (as one would expect of a maker of bests); others I've seen or been told about by people who know their guns have exhibited similar quality.
I personally find the action itself to be superb in use (effectively it's a self opener on a simpler system than Beesley's patent) and very elegantly shaped, but it's not to everyone's taste. It was probably only the dominance and popularity/fashionability of the toplever SLE which ultimately killed it off.
RG