imho a manual tranny is the way to go. You dont have to worry about overheating it from a torque converter locking and unlocking and searching for gears. I've had 3/4 or bigger trucks from dodge, ford and chevy, all autos. Not one of those tranny's in stock form are worth crap. As far as replacing clutches in a manual tranny, don't worry about it. If you drive a manual tranny correctly you can get an easy 200k miles out of it.