Interesting thread, just wanted to put in my 2 cents here as well. I picked up the M/T sport and have no regrets, the car I traded in was a 2009 Subaru STI, and I got a lot of laughs from my friends when I made this transition!
But here's what I learned: If you can only have one car to own as a daily driver, it made no sense to own a high horsepower sports car, even if it's a wagon - try commuting with a 17MPG car through traffic! especially where the engine requires premium gas!! Now, yes, you can take the car to the track on weekends, and I did that too, about a total of 5 times over the course of 2 years, driving 100 miles to Willow Springs raceway here in SoCal. The problem with a sports car/daily driver is that once on the track, you (or at least in my case) tend to drive it tenderly, because even though you're on a racetrack, in the back of your mind, you need to remind yourself that this same car will still need to make it's way back home at the end of the day, and then to work the next day! Even with run-offs, it's not fool proof! One of the track days, we witnessed an S2000 take a turn too aggressively and it ended up getting totaled, and unable to drive on it's own power.
One day, driving home from work, I realized that of the 50,000 miles on my STI, I estimated that only 0.1 % was used for it's intended engineering purpose as a sports car, and it just didn't make sense to me! So, to Mazda dealerships I went!
With the CX-5, I get the practicality of an SUV (and a pseudo-truck, with the roof rack), the ability to tow 2000 lbs (maybe a stripped down track-only miata soon?), awesome MPGs, and three pedals to keep my feet happy!
As a side note regarding the discussion of AT vs MT - personally, I think the appeal of an MT is not the ability to choose your own gears, it's more about the "analog-ness" of the clutch pedal, the art of modulation between "on and off" of each gear, and the satisfaction you get after perfecting a smooth heal-toe downshift (even if its during your daily commute! for the CX-5, you'll need to install some aftermarket pedals to get this right!). It just makes driving more interesting and interactive, where each trip is more event-like, and going from point A to B becomes A-C-B where C makes the drive noteworthy, rather than just a chore.
Sorry for the long post, I'm usually a forum-lurker, but decided to speak up in this thread!
Happy Shifting! =]