just to chime into the auto vs manual thing as well... before the auto's were not as efficient at delivering the power to the wheels but technology has advanced so that the loss in power is a lot closer to maunal's.
i believe it was 15-20% drop off for manuals and 25+ for auto's. if you look at some of the tunes and dyno sheets here you can see that the manual's and auto's run statistically insignificant differences for like to like cars.
i occasionally drive in stop-n-go traffic (from DT toronto out to suburbia) and i'll just say it has its moments. it actually keeps me awake since driving an auto i get bored so constantly having to shift keeps me aware of the surroundings.
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