My wife has never touched any of my cars. Why? They don’t ride as comfy as her corolla. 
Ah well, I like them lowered.
I don’t mind auto, especially for cruisers. I’m going to mod my TCM on the I30 to control the shifts. Since it is a 4 speed, there are only 2 solenoids to control. It will allow me to hold the car in gear for the dyno’s, and I’ll have faster shifts at the track. Basically, i flip a switch to change gears. When I get really serious, I can use an MSD window switch to preset the RPM and away I go.
However, for a road course car, I need something with more gears that I can manually control. Clutch pedal or not, I don’t care. SMG or notch-box shifter doesn’t matter to me. I want to move as fast as I can. Whatever works is what I use.