Automatic Updating is a theme killer

So I was updating WordPress today and saw an update for Atahualpa. I looked at the info briefly and did the automatic update… guess what? The entire theme I setup in Atahualpa’s Theme Options has gone “POOF!” that’s right everything is gone as if it was fully reset. On top of that, all the custom images I uploaded to the Atahualpa theme directory they vanished as well. Good thing this was not on my live server and only on my development server. I did not see any urgent warnings to backup your custom theme, but in any case, this is my first time working with this framework and I am not impressed with update process.