It's like puberty really, the plant usually shows the preflowers at a certain age just like men get facial hair & women get breasts. It's just signalling to the outside world that it's come of age and is ready to breed.

That part about crossing to a normal strain was more directed at Shasta, as long as you got the seeds from the breeder or an authorized reseller then it should be legit as an auto.

As for strength, I've never tried Lowrider but it seems very similar to the auto I grew out. Mine was pretty potent, small yield but strong smoke. I've heard a lot about how ruderalis is crap, and how the ruderalis in the autoflowers makes them crap. True it's not as strong as some of the other "normal" varieties, but it can still be pretty good IMHO. Autoflowers are primarily geared towards people with not much space or growing talent from what I've seen, not necessarily for heavy smokers or conniseurs.