I still think that the stick-shift layout is a terrible human interface and that people just like it because they like the control (which is achievable via other better interfaces) and because they think it's cool.
I still broadly agree that a manual transmission is now a poor interface - automatic gearboxes are a great example of genuine technology* - but I disagree that the sole reasons people hang on to it as an interface are control and impressing one's peers. I couldn't care less whether driving a manual is considered cool - I enjoy all manner of vehicles and pursuits that are woefully uncool, so driving stick is hardly going to neutralise my social ills.
I simply find it, on balance, more fun than driving an automatic. It varies from car to car of course: putting a stick shift in a fundamentally boring car doesn't make it fun, it just makes it a boring car that you have to exert more concentration in.
But I've driven enough cars now, fast and slow, excellent and poor, weird and straight-laced, to know that in cars designed explicitly for fun they're even more entertaining when you're able to invest extra skill in the process of something so fundamental to the car's progress. Pulling a little flap and getting a parp from the exhaust as the revs auto-match in a good DCT is all well and good, but I enjoy the physical action of judging throttle, clutch, shifter and brakes just-so, and enjoy it even more on the (increasing) occasions I get it just right.
I may never have the consistency to do so as a DCT might, but it's human nature to give it a go anyway, and there's a very primal satisfaction in executing a mechanical task, no matter how ultimately fruitless, to the best of your abilities. An electronic coffee maker might mix beans and water far better than grinding your own beans and compressing the granules in a cafetiere, and there's little good reason to do the latter when the former is so efficient. But the latter is tactile, and I've not yet used a paddleshift setup that's as tactile as a good manual.
On the flip side, I disagree with those who consider any car improved simply by virtue of it using a manual gearbox. Some - many, even - manuals are simply crap, and others are entirely inappropriate for the cars they might be attached to. A manual in a Rolls-Royce Phantom would be a besmirching of all that is wonderful about utterly effortless travel. Equally, an automatic Elise would be an empty experience when every other aspect of the car requires and rewards involvement.
*
So, technology. An oft-misused term but one the automatic gearbox suits perfectly. Technology is knowledge applied to accomplish an objective, generally to make life easier - computers compute for us, automatic gearboxes streamline the complex process of shifting gears. In contrast, a hoverboard is not technology, it's frippery that's less efficient and less reliable than simply walking or riding a bicycle. And it makes you look like a tit.
