Maybe so but automatic transmissions are deeply ingrained, and I can't blame Volkswagen for selling what sells.
In a few years manual transmissions will be all but dead in the US. They are pretty much dead in the luxury car market as it is (Volkswagen didn't even bother with a manual Pbuttat TDI last year), they only really hang around in enthusiast and economy cars. Direct shift gearboxes are going to outperform a traditional manual, and for fuel economy now days there's increasingly very little different from auto and manual, especially in Japanese cars. The automatic transmissions they have now days are also a far cry from the older mechanical versions- if I did have a manual it would probably be superfluous because my automatic shifts perfectly as it is.
I have an aversion to manuals. It comes from a very bad experience driving my uncles Ford F-150 manual. The thing died constantly, or rather, I let the engine stall. Eventually I got the hang of it but it was a pain in traffic. I think the worst thing for manual is having to use a clutch all the time and having to shift into neutral- some of the newer transmissions used in European cars have sequential manuals or "semi-automatics" that don't require a clutch (the DaimlerChrysler Smart car has a clutchless automatic that lets the driver upshift, but the car automaticly downshifts).
So, I'm not saying an automatic transmission is all bad. It certainly makes driving easier. But that's both a good and bad thing.
