unless finely tuned, a auto sport shift is not that great.

car as hard as I

[... snip]

Well, I suppose first we might define what exactly you mean by a missed shift,
or mis-shift?  Do you mean poking it into 4th when you meant 5th?  1st when
you meant 2nd?  Or Reverse when you meant 3rd?

First off, I ain't saying I'm the world's greatest driver, but I've been driving
manuals for close to forty years, working on a million miles driven, and have
never accidentally shifted into reverse, or first instead of fourth or fifth,
etc.

We might postulate that if a guy is really trying to speed shift, and grabbing
gears
as fast as he can, maybe he might hit third instead of fifth or something
similar.
What I'm trying to say in a nice way, try a little less excitedness and rush,
and
just a little bit more deliberateness and care ... =8^)

As far as blowing the engine, I won't say all cars, but most have rev limiters
built
into them, which ought to reduce the chance that you're engine will blow.
Engine
cuts out at xxxx rpm, before engine goes south.  Unless you've chipped your car
and removed the rev limiter ... those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

"I don't drive my car as hard as I could ..."  Jeez, how hard you wanna drive,
guy?
I'm no stranger to triple digits, but I have noted this remarkable phenomena
called
cause and effect, wherein thrashing the crap out of my car causes it to not
last very long.  Yeah, you could maximize how hard you drive, bumping off the
rev limiter (if present) on each shift, waiting until the absolute very last
moment
to slam on the brakes, taking each corner at warp speed.  Interestingly enough,
they don't even do that in fookin' race cars during a race ... because it won't
last the whole car.  Smoothness rules.

<clambering off soapbox>

I understand what you say about living in the city, though.  Constantly having
to
shift, clutch, etc. in stop-and-go traffic sucks.  Manys the time an automatic
seemed mighty attractive under those conditions.

My first car was a standard, after that I swore I would never own another
standard until I had enough money to have a second 'fun' car.