I posted something similar to that saying months ago in the "Suggestions to Firaxis" threads, and nothing has changed since - in fact, the current thread reinforces it.
As long as Civ is a competition game, either between people or between a person and the computer, and as long a person can do a better job of decision-making and planning than a computer/AI can, people will micromanage in the game. Period.
As for making an AI that can "micro" manage as well as a person in Civ, note that Chess has only two sides, 64 tiles of only two types, 16 units on a side of 6 different types, and it took how long and how much $$$ to develop Big Blue? Multiply Chess's complexity by about 8 orders of magnitude (terrain types, number of tiles, number of units, types of units, diplomacy, development, research, etc, etc) and then try to develop a competitive AI - but don't expect to play it on this or the next generation of home computers!
So, we are reduced to "automating" the micromanagement. This, from all the discussion so far, comes down to managing the individual cities in your Civ - civ-wide research and taxaton aren't a problem since they are Civ-wide.
The problem with grouping cities into Regions is that there weren't no such thing until mass rapid transportation was available - either a group of cities had to be connected by river-canal-sea or by railroads. No road traffic could carry bulk goods any distance with animal motive power, so Regions before the railroad will be mostly riverine or coastal - and damn hard to define except in terms of trade routes established.
Automating individual city builds, and especially starting queues, runs into the problem that individual city start-ups vary with the requirements of the citizens: a city in the desert needs water systems first, in hostile territory they need defenses, over the ocean needs a port first, etc. For an extreme example, the Romano-German city of Aquieas Mattiacus (modern Wiesbaden on the Rhine) started with a set of hot bath spas, to entice Romans and their money and goods across the river! How to you automate that kind of thing?

Programmable Defaults are another thing, and should be added to any game...
Multiple Build Queues is long overdue, but why tie it to a specific number? The bigger the city, and the more facilities for production it has, the more "simultaneous Builds" it should get. At the same time, by building only one thing (Priority?) it should be able to concentrate resources for a "Rush Job" - within reason.
I'd have the number of possible simultaneous builds be dependant on the size of the city (assuming lots of little workshops or industries as a % of the population), certain special Improvements (Shipyards, Barracks, Factories, etc), and possibly on the Social-Political organization of the civ. The last is based on the premise that a Militaristic society will produce more military units than a democratic-peaceful capitalistic one, which would, however, produce more wealth and happiness producing Improvements faster.
Which brings up "automatic" infrastructure for a city. I think this should be based squarely on the Social-Political structure and the requirements of terrain and surroundings. Thus, a city across the ocean from the Capital will start with a Stockade/City Wall and a Port. A city of a capitalist-Democratic civ will build a Market first, while a Theocracy will build a Temple first, etc. For player interaction, you can change the auto-builds, but building anything else first would cost more: the automatic-socially-generated builds would be very cheap for that particular civ.
Finally, why should only the resources of a single city be used to build a Civ-wide Wonder? I know right now in CivII I can use Caravans to add resources to a Wonder build, but such a project should automatically receive resources from other cities in the civ. The amount should vary depending on transportation technology and location (can it be shipped in by sea, river, or canal) and by the requirements of the civ-society: an economic Wonder would attract extra resources in a capitalist civ, a religious Wonder in a Theocracy, a military Wonder in a civ which is militaristic, or is getting butt-whipped in a war...