Drove sticks for years, in the Northeastern US....with NYC and Boston traffic and hilly terrains of the Hudson River Valley and New England. Those driving conditions were hard on a clutch. Eventually I grew weary of them in the stop & go traffic and particulary when having to take off from a stop on an uphill grade. Those situations were no fun...especially if it was the guy in front of me with the stick and he didn't know how to handle it, sliding backwards at me while I prayed the sum***** would let the clutch up....

It used to be there was a significant difference in fuel economy, but that's negligible with today's auto tranny's, some with 6-speed capability. It's even gotten to the point where some cars get better MPG with auto, but those are rare. Every automatic tranny on our cars since 1992 has had an 'overdrive cancel' button on the shifter or similar function that knocks out what would be 5th or 6th gear, even 4th at lower speeds. It effectively gives you the control of a stick to downshift to aid in deceleration, but I find it most useful when getting on a freeway here in CA....to sustain or boost acceleration, like how I remember as a kid in the 60's my dad executing 'kickdown' to do the same with the auto tranny on an Olds '88...a sudden, sharp flooring of the accelerator that would 'boost' the power.

Bottom line to me is if I drove 80-90% freeway, a stick would save gas and not be a hassle. But for me, it's more like 10-20% freeway driving and a stick is just a Royal PIA.