Well, at the risk of a pee-pee whack for hyjacking this thread, I guess I'll put my .02 in. Like OldSub said I think it's personal preference. Me, I like both. I learned how to drive on a standard truck 40 years ago, at age 9. My dad taught me how to drive so I could help him in the fields and around the place.
In 23 years as a fleet mechanic and another 8 years as a fleet manager, I've driven 3,4,5,6,9,10 & 13 speed transmissions in all sizes of trucks. Probably one of the best things we ever did was switching to Allison automatics in our route trucks back in the late 70's. They hold up very well and we no longer have busted clutches, rear ends and axles from letting young inexperienced steering wheel holders loose with a manual transmission. Some of these guys don't even know what a clutch is. We still use 9 & 10 speeds in our class 8 trucks as they are mostly over the road trucks with more seasoned drivers.
I taught my wife to drive a standard before we got married(23 years ago) and she can still drive one now. But her preference is an automatic. My daily driver is a '92 GMC with the 4.3 v6 and a 5 speed. It's got 427,000 miles on the original engine and transmission, but I maintain it well and I don't ruff it up. I drive almost 80 miles a day to work and back home. My '90 GMC crew cab 1 ton has the 454 and turbo 400. I know a standard would pull just as well, but the automatic sure makes it nice to spot my 5th wheel camper.
So like I said before, each to his/her own.
