Mehh can't decide between a stick or Tiptronic...

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Coming from a 5 spd B6 1.8T A4 I'm used to the manual tranny. I'll be honest though, I haven't been that impressed with the Audi slushbox. Not sure if its a B6 thing. I've driven the BMW's, and their gearboxes are oh so smooth, but I'm not going to give up the Audi's good looks for a BMW -- among a few other things.

Looking to pick up an '07 or '08 Avant 2.0t within the next few months. First of all I'm having a REALLY tough time finding one with a 6 spd, but regardless, should I even look that hard? I've driven the one with the tiptronic and all the '08's come with the shifter paddles behind the steering wheel. I MIGHT chip this car (sort of tired of modifying the car heavily), definitely going with coilovers and wheels, and I'm really feeling the '08s coming with the Sline standard. So my question is, 1) should I just get the tiptronic with the paddles (easier to find, thus i'll be able to get it a bit cheaper, rather than ordering the car and paying MSRP), 2) has Audi improved their gearboxes since the B6s - those of you coming from a manual b6 stepping up to a b7? 3) With a chip, is the fun factor of the 2.0t's the same using the tiptronic, or is it pretty much, once you go manual, you never go back?

I'm really caught up on whether I want a car that I can just get into and chill with, not having to shift gears, and feel around. Also, do any of you feel like your manual transmissions are more fragile than the Autos? I don't mean that in all technical aspects, I mean literally, when I let other people drive the car, techs, family/friends, I feel more cautious to choose who drives my b6 with the manual transmission because a person could do so much more damage if they don't know how to drive the car properly. Grinding gears, stalling out, shifting hard, etc. Where as with an automatic, if you leave the car in drive, theres very little they can do rather then just step on it. Aside from dropping the car into reverse or slamming it into sport mode would you agree?

I just don't want to go through the hassle of changing out my clutch (like i had to on my b6 after 40k miles, of course after adding several mods to the car, chip/flash/injectors *no big turbo*), but wondering if this should even be a concern. Sorry I'm rambling, just at work, and have a bunch of random tangent thoughts in my head, seeing if anyone else has any ideas or comments.

Thanks!