I've been a manual guy all my life, but few years back I was towing the trailer back home from the west coast for thanksgiving, after driving for 12h straight I got within 100 miles of home and got hit w/a snow storm.. took another 8h, crawling through the mountains in heavy holiday traffic to get home.. I was messed up for days after that.
That was not the first time I got screwed by hometown traffic jams after spending all day on the road, but it was by far the worst.
After that I was alot more amicable to the idea of a slushbox, my current ride has an 8spd Aisin in it and I really like it.. shifts fast, shifts smooth, usually it dont act stupid but if it does I can train it using the manual mode when I dont like its shifting behavior.. even has adaptive cruise controll so I dont needa use any pedals for hours on end.. now I can spend 10-20h on the road and I feel great, no more limping around and eating a handfull of muscle relaxers before bed..
getting old sucks..