Automation rules today require a great deal of repetitive configuration as they currently lack the ability to query for a set of data and then use this later in the workflow. For example when updating a Feature that references a custom table I'd like to begin a workflow that has access to any field in that custom table's row. Today to accomplish this I have to create rules for each row, rather than a single more flexible rule. This is compounded when I think need to replicate this across workspaces where there are different custom table rows.
There are a few places today where something similar is available, such as as "Same as user" option, but this needs to be more globally available.