With a good automatic you never notice it shift. That's how mine is on my Nissan Frontier. I believe in a hilly enviro you gotta have a stick because that's where the auto gets in trouble. In a flat city, it's just a pain in the butt, and it's a huge hassle in a traffic jam. Not once in a while, but if you're having to deal with traffic regularly you get sick of it and one day you find yourself looking for a new car and you think, I'm getting an automatic. I'm crossing over to the dark side.
Gotta agree with you there. If I lived in a high-density traffic area I'd probably ditch the stick. On trips to LI where my parents live my left leg aches from the clutch by the time I finally get to their house.
But in rural VT the stick is great, particularly in the snow. Lots more control....
LQ
I do, especially when powering out of corners. I want to be in a certain gear at exactly one specific moment with a certain amount of gas applied. With an auto there will be a lag between me pressing the pedal and it shifting into a gear of its choice. As I said, I compensate by learning that transmission's shifting points, but why bother -- just get a manual or a sequential (the latter being what Mercedes mimics with its new paddle shifters).
I'll deal with the rare traffic jam moments and keep my control.