The Chrome team's view is 'that this is very important for user security by allowing users to have unique and more complex passwords for websites.' They also point out that 'this does not affect non-password fields', so it may be you still have to manually enter some information to access your secure sites, although it very much depends on how those sites are designed.
While it's true that you are more likely to choose a complex password if Chrome will remember it for you, this does mean you have to entrust Chrome with that information. If you use Chrome Sync, you also have to trust that information will be safe being sent across Google's servers.
You can choose to turn off ignore autocomplete='off' in the password manager, but it's unlikely that normal users would actually do that.
This feature does make it easier to use complex passwords, but at the same time means they will be saved by Chrome. Online services such as banks would be more secure if you simply use a complex password and remember it, as your head is less likely to be a victim of hacking than a server or computer.