Sticks are great when you're young and driving a muscle car. They're a lot of fun. In fact, the first vehicle I learned to drive in was a manual '66 Chevy Pickup, when the gear shifter was mounted on the steering column. Talk about a learning experience. lol.... Wish my pops had kept that truck. She was a short-bed, dark blue color, and you didn't have to take it into a shop and spend $400 to get work done on it if you were the least bit mechanically inclined.
Then, when in the army, bought a brand new 1990 Honda Accord, which was manual. I absolutely loved that car. I got 36 mpg and never had a problem with it in all the years we owned it. But then again - my commute from off-post housing to the base at Ft. Benning was only 20 minutes and only a few traffic lights.
But as I got older and spent more and more time in rush-hour traffic - I found the manual transmission more annoying than fun.
My son drives a 2013 VW GTI hatchback that is stick-shift. It's a fun little ride, very nice car. He had it worked on shortly after buying it and had a chip put in that gives it about 25 more horsepower.... A popular car for the younger adults who have yet to experience gridlock at 5 o'clock in the afternoon on the 45 minute drive home from work.
I test drove it before he bought it. It was a lot of fun. It took me back to a time in my younger days when I too enjoyed driving a stick.