God @
Tcoat, you bring this forum some much needed humor sometimes and it makes me laugh so much.
To OP's question:
1. Manual because it's the cool thing to do.
(On a serious note, it's because I like to have control of everything of my car. Manual is just pure fun and puts everything in your hands - being that this is my first manual car and the fact that I learned on the BRZ, it is awesome!)
2. I'd probably go for another manual.