It doesn't sound like you're interested in the "automatic" aspect of it all.
Well, both! of you seem not interested in setting up proper debug and release settings.
The auto increment should be reserved for some kind of release (be it internal, a commit or a release) and the debug settings during development should not touch it.
That is not rocket science. Pressing F9 all the time might overflow the version number at some point...
... like about 256's time per dotted part?
The version feature is only meant for serious building, not for development and incrementing all the time.
Setup your builds correctly and it is a very valuable feature. But do use it for any commits, so the executable is verifiable. (the binary, not the commit version)