Al, I'm a big fan of Rick, especially his What Makes This Song Great...and his constant fight w the record company/band Blockers.
It's quite something to see this fellow spend so much time praising Adele's non use of AutoTune. What this suggests is that's it's totally rife within the industry, and a total plague on their houses.
I was watching Andrew Rooney dissemble a Neil Peart performance and time and time again he remarked how Peart (and the band) laid down a performance, a linear start to finish take w little if any frippery/studio manipulation. And for him this was the key to his brilliance as a musician, his mastery of composition and playing in real time as a holistic piece of art.
Adele shunning AutoTune and showing her humanity in "less than perfection" makes her expression more enthralling and immersive, her imperfections are integral to her art. Rather than interpolated into technical perfection, but less human as a result.