650D/STM: Manual vs Auto Focus

I recently upgraded from a G7 to a T4i.  I don't have a lot of DSLR experience; however, have read many through many posts about focus, focus techniques etc. After taking multiple shots indoor and a few outdoor, I find the images to be blurry or soft.  Granted most have been high-iso (1600 or a few 3200) some of them have been between 200-400.

To try and test what may be happening, I tried a number of auto focus shots using a specific focus point (each of the 9 points) using the viewfinder and comparing them. I've tried multiple shots in various light and against contrast edges or sharp lettering. What I found is that the auto-focus is sometimes sharp but sometimes slightly blurry - not sure if that is hand-shake (or high-ISO).

By the way, using LiveView shooting consistently produces sharp images. I then read up on Liveview shooting and using magnify while manually focusing.  So I then took a sample images using LV, Magnify, MF  vs viewfinder, center autofocus point and the manual focus is sharper - to my eyes.

My question is ... should the autofocus be as sharp as what I can achieve via manual focus ... do I need to return this camera or be more accepting?

Hopefully the attachments (100% crop of focus point) comes through with EXIF data.

The focus point was the door handle on the right:

Auto-focus shot

Manual Focus

Here's another 100% crop example of AF test using specific focus points (through the viewfinder):

Although this is "blurry" using the right focus point, I took several other shots using the same focus points and the image sharpness was better .... hence the inconsistency I'm seeing.

This looks pretty darn good to my old eyes...

Ultimately, I'm not sure if it is my inexperience with DSLR & lenses or if there is a problem with the camera/lens.

I appreciate any input/insight folks can provide!  Thanks.