Auto updating of comments is a good thing, however it can be troublesome with status posts and such. On Facebook for example I've had plenty of times where I'm reading over a thoughtful status post and then suddenly it's bumped down by a new post without refreshing the page. So keep this in mind as a factor.

But I do believe in an admins right to choose how to handle this.

Actually I think this is quite an interesting point. Why making it not even better than facebook.
I believe a Javascript event could be found to halt auto updating temporarily. It could be a mousedown or a focus event. This could mean that if a user presses the mouse button permanently or gives focus to an object, auto updating could pause for a bit.

I think that would be a great thing.

I don´t know CB Activity so I cannot really give advice. But there might be a way do limit this function to a specific object or focus.
I can remember similar issue with chat windows in Flash. Messages kept coming in and scrolling down faster than you can read them.
So sometimes there was a scrolling stop implemented on mouse over. As long as the mouse was placed over the text area it stopped scrolling.

So maybe it is possible to define a special area where to place the mouse or to tick a box or what ever to let a user have a bit of control over the updating process. I think this would be really useful and user friendly.