You're the one arguing automatics can't be controlled properly. I want to know in what ways.
Not necessarily "properly", but there's things you just can't do with autos:
Changing from barely tickover to peak power output without changing speed. Especially useful on turbo cars when you want to be able to overtake without the burden of turbo lag
Being in the right gear to accelerate away from a corner
Being able to manage your speed at very low speeds or while going downhill (ok auto boxes have overrides to allow engine breaking, but who uses them?)
Long drives are boring, regardless. Having to regularly row through the gearbox just makes the whole experience more fatiguing - and the last thing you want on a long trip is more fatigue.
All the long (500+ miles in a day) trips I've been on have all been on motorways where you stick it in top gear and leave it there. For the last (urban) section of the drive I've never felt changing gear (something as thoughtless as breathing most of the time) to be particularly fatiguing
Cruise control is liked by people who are experienced at driving distances and realise that it makes monitoring your speed one less thing you have to worry about, again reducing fatigue.
Agreed on this one. Since getting my first car with cruise, I'm never driving long trips without it again.
It also helps massively on UK motorways where we've got roadworks all over the place and SPECS cameras (distance-time numberplate recognition cameras to enforce average speed limits). Putting cruise on once and not having to glance at the speedo again is a joy