I despise apps that stay running unnecessarily, normally, but this one never bothered me, because I expect it to always be running. Even when I deactivate it, it's usually only temporary. This app is meant to be running all the time, for the most part.
Yeah, that's a bit annoying. As far as I know that will be changed in the next version of SmartWiFi. At least, that's what I heard from their support when I complained about that. Despite the fact that the icon is still there, I don't experience any problem with it. It is a nice app and I really like it.
Works fine for me, especially after I fine-tune it by removing specific towers from certain hotspots when I don't want it to connect. I get no spam from S4BB.