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The undeniable fact is that money talks to these folks, and not much else does (brand status is also a key here, though - Porsche is 'building and selling out manual only models' but IIRC in editions of under 500 apiece, and probably double the cost of the base model, so more of a halo factor. They also got away with making engines that have a grenade pin in them, and front bearings made out of potmetal, etc. - proving the value of that branding/loyalty (if Chrysler did it, they'd have been long dead). Personally I like a manual for sport driving, but it isn't essential, and to me a royal PITA in daily driving. But I do kind of like that BMW still makes them, as a sign of being a true drivers car, so I wish you all luck in saving the manuals.
You all need to be writing and calling to let them know how you feel, and including a discussion of how much extra you would be happy to pay - I fear that too much of the energy on these boards is just fandom (nothing wrong w/ it, but it doesn't sell many manuals and tends to be the unproductive 'just do it for us' approach). I don't think I've ever seen a poster on this topic include contact info about who at BMW they are bitching to, so that the rest of us could join in. Not that it will be a magic bullet - that recent R&T article on driving dynamics, where the BMW engineer plays dumb about what 'steering feedback' really means, shows they can easily apply corporate spin to drown out our voices.
And a related, overarching issue where we could all do the field a favor would be getting away from the damned bench-racing numbers wars. The engineers have now surpassed most of the human parameters that were originally motivating the quest for faster cars, but the relentless competition to shave another 0.1 second from a 0-60 time is killing the true drivers car. I would bet that in reality most all of us selected our cars based upon issues of fit and feel, but the industry likes simple, so they chase numbers - no surprise we get more robotic cars, the drag racers were using computers in the 70's that could outgun a human.
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