Jackson I actually feel the opposite way. Whenever I hear a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or even a Boxster/Cayman or 911 with a DCT drive past at full tilt, the lack of a true manual shift really kills the soundtrack for me. It just sounds like a fart-can Honda with a better sounding engine driving past to me.

And West I do appreciate a DCT's ability on a track, but as someone who has spent countless hours figuring out the best shift points on our A6 and learning to pull off a consistent heel/toe downshift, there's no replacing a proper clutch pedal. This past year, I have been fortunate enough to have an opportunity to drive two of our cars on some of NC's greatest mountain roads - curvy, demanding roads with NO speed limit - and while the Passat was probably technically easier because I could quickly snap back and forth through the gears with its Tiptronic automatic, it just got boring after a while because it automatically matched the revs and never missed a shift. It was just too hard to mess up, and one thing I enjoy about driving a manual on a demanding road is the pressure to avoid screwing up.

One of these days I need to try one of those exotic car driving experiences to try a DCT in a high performance car, but I'm not sure I'd enjoy the transmission very much.