Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel

Having lived in basically flat areas and not needing to drive in stop-and-go traffic I almost never found it annoying.

Now, had I lived in a place like San Francisco I probably would have a very different opinion.

Also, in the plus column I'll add one more feature: If you need to stomp on the gas to get out of the way a manual is better than an auto. The auto will rev up the engine, decide it should be in the lower gear, slow the engine, shift and rev it again. The manual will simply let the engine rev. If you stomp on the pedal while driving you don't care about fuel economy at the moment!

Having evaded accidents twice due to this I was very reluctant to go to an auto, but my latest car is a CVT--it doesn't exhibit this behavior. While the transmission does seem to do something it gets out of the way at least as well as I could.