Hey! I had some similar debates before getting my ZR.
First, let me say that I live in SoCal and I love heated seats...I wouldn't get a roadster without them. When I get a convertible, I want to have the top down as much as possible. Heated seats mean that only rain will force the top up...even when it gets down in the forties (which is freezing by CA standards), the car is totally comfortable. The heated/cooled seats in the ZR work really well, too.
So Touring/Sport vs. Base - you can probably still get a base 2010 ZR for about $31k (try Fontana Nissan, they were blowing out their '10's at that price), or pay ~$38k for a Touring/Sport. The car is very capable in Base form, so everything else is just about comfort/luxury/aesthetics with incremental performance improvements. If you don't care about things like leather, intelligent key, 19" wheels, etc., just take the $7k difference between Base and Touring/Sport and hand-select some aftermarket upgrades. You can do some pretty sick stuff to your car for way less than $7k...
Sorry, no input on the clutch - I actually liked the clutch on the manual cars I drove.
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Platinum Graphite 2010 Roadster Touring/Sport Package, 20" R35 GT-R Wheels, MagnaFlow Cat-Back Exhaust, Spoiler
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