I have in the past suffered emotionally/psychologically crippling intrusive thoughts. In that case, it didn't feel like a personality trait or type, it didn't feel like just being me, it felt like part of my mind was out of step with the rest, and I was being torn up psychologically. That I would consider a mental illness, and I would have no issue curing myself of that if it returned or making a cure to it the default.

I am an aspie, and that feels nothing like those intrusive thoughts. It doesn't feel like anything, it feels like being me. I don't feel like a person trapped, I am a person who thinks in certain ways. There is no me underneath the aspergers like there was a me underneath the intrusive thoughts. Now, are there certain "symptoms" associated with the autism spectrum that I might want to "cure" myself of? Yes, I would prefer not having sensory overload issues, and I suppose the aforementioned intrusive thoughts might also be related to my being an aspie. But I certainly wouldn't want to "cure" my aspie-ness as a whole, that would be a rewrite of my personality.

For people who are "low functioning" autistic, do you really think they have a "normal" (or even "high functioning" autistic) conscious self trapped underneath their autism, cut off from the world, that is thinking something completely different from what their behavior indicates and wishing that "if only they could be free"? It seems unlikely to me, especially for the most intellectually impaired individuals. It sounds like the desperate wishful thinking of parents who want a "normal" child.

Now, if rather than talking about autism as a whole we were talking about compulsive behaviors like stimming, then in that case I think they are sometimes something external to personality (I stim occasionally, get rid of that and I am still me), though unless they are causing self harm or attacks on others I see no reason to view them as anything but harmless variations, and no reason to spend effort and trauma on a "cure". Getting people to stop self harming seems reasonable.

Communications issues are more complicate because they seem like they could sometimes be an indirect symptom of personality differences, but if we were talking about fixing those without changing the underlying personality, then fine.

But autism is not merely impaired communication and compulsive behavior.