I lean toward the diehard
I lean toward the diehard stick-shift crowd. The last 10 cars I've owned were all manual transmission. My most recent new car purchase was a 2016 Nissan Frontier small pickup truck. This Nissan is also the first vehicle I've owned where the traction control cannot be fully disabled (short of having an aftermarket ABS fuse interrupt switch installed.) Without the ability to turn off the traction control and hang the back end out, or slide around on wet pavement I've found myself wondering if I would be more entertained trading my truck in for a full size automatic Chevy with a 6.2L V8 and a burly exhaust system or a vehicle with automatic trans that still has the ability to switch off stability control. I've also had the recent experience of driving both a Porsche Carrera with tiptronic automatic transmission and a 2019 Ford Mustang eco-boost automatic rental car with the line-lock feature AND the ability to fully disable stability control. Since driving those two cars, I've been plagued with the question about which type of car would give me more daily driving pleasure: Auto trans with ability to shut off stability control or manual trans with permanent stability control. This new era of mandatory technology presents a new set of pros/cons that are very different from the pros/cons of this automatic vs standard debate 15-20 years ago. That 4 cylinder eco-boost (turbo) mustang with automatic was much faster than a manual equipped version according to both the auto magazines and my butt dyno. The only new cars on my current wish list that I could actually afford are the new Mx5 with enhanced engine and the Mustang gt350. I can't imagine buying either of those cars without a manual transmission. But going back to my current truck situation I'm almost at the point where I could see myself selling a truck with manual trans and permanent stability control for a car with automatic trans that had a stability control that could be easily switched off...or back on...especially if that car had a brilliant sounding engine or exhaust.