If your site is good enough - people will find it and either bookmark it or link to it naturally. Why risk angering the search engines with dumb spam machines like auto submitters or spam services

am shocked so many do this

Don't know why people always look for a short cut? When it is said that auto submissions are not usually accepted. The auto submission sites and softwares are just waste of time and money. The submissions done by them dont get accepted.

It is always recommended by professionals to submit it manually. I too recommend you to do the submissions manually. This way you can maintain the records of each.

Good Luck!