Automatic alignment for smart objects?

Regarding Auto-Align specifically, I suspect this is a deliberate policy to avoid confusion and errors - and user complaints -  later. A smart object can indeed be transformed using the regular transform tools, so there's probably not a technical limitation.

But Auto-Blend can't work. That requires direct pixel value altering, which is not possible in smart objects. Hence, the Photomerge script is off limits.

But even Auto-Align by itself could cause problems with smart objects in a panorama stitch. What if you align them and do some changes to the embedded smart object later - like in a raw file smart object? For instance, the lens profile could easily be changed. That could throw everything off, without an apparent and obvious cause. Again, user complaints would explode.

All in all, there are some uncertainties here. I'm in no way against it myself, I just suspect there may be good reasons for this.

Post it as an Idea, and see if it gets any traction.

You posted a »Discussion«, if you wanted to post a Feature Request you should have marked it as »Idea«. 

I am all for utilizing the benefits of Smart Objects, but this seems a minor concern to me at best – because I seldom need to need to stich panoramas, I guess. 

The Transformation applied in Auto-Aligning seems to be a Warp at most (I am not absolutely sure, though), so that should indeed be able to be applied to Smart Objects, but I have no idea what the Auto-Blend incorporates exactly, so I am not at all sure whether it could be created as Adjustment Layers.