>As my wife can only drive automatics we've always had them and as a lot of my driving is urban automatic is the only way top go anyway. But I do remember on motorcycles the pleasure of getting brake acceleration and gear perfect on a corner.

And the pleasure of seeing a dozen tons of SUVs and other mastodons reduced to icon size in my mirror, because they were sleeping at the lights, and relied on their automatics to get them through the crossing intersection. Of course, they pass me on a straight part half a kilometer later, but that's only because I stuck to the speed limit. And my car was "only a Corolla".