The easy answer to your question is: yes, you can run your automated scripts without needing a debug version. But that comes with a caveat... if you develop your tests on a debug version, you MAY be using public, private and/or protected properties of objects. If you then try to run those tests on a non-debug version, they will fail because they will be dependant upon those properties.
Recommendation: If you want to be able to run your tests on a non-debug version, you need to develop your tests against a non-debug version to avoide these potential problems.
