Looking good. I like the paint chips.
As for the auto-smooth – it got replaced by “shade smooth by angle” and a modifier “smooth by angle”. The shade smooth by angle from the context menu does mark edges on you mesh as sharp, wherever it finds sharp edges and you won’t be able to smooth those anymore. If you want to smooth it similar to the old way I recommend the smooth by angle modifier after you shaded your model regular smooth. In said modifier you can specify the angle at which the smoothing changes to sharp. It allows for better control of the smoothness. You might have to play a bit with that angle for bevels etc until you get the desired result.
One important note about that modifier is that it needs to be at the bottom of the stack at all times to work correctly.
