I love manuals and driving also. But I'll say keyless entry fobs have definitely won me over. Once I got used to them with my 2018 crosstrek and then my 2019 sti, keys feel awkward. Cars with buttons and knobs are extremely intuitive and safe IMO.
My son is an aspiring mechanic and I want him to succeed, so I've helped him learn (and learned at the same time myself). We did his first engine swap when he was 14 and now at 17 we've done several. We've been doing track days at our local track (evergreen speedway) for the last few years, and I find the more I learn about driving/mechanics the more I like it. It's a weird hobby (being interested in cars feels weird to me), but fun! You make friends with a lot of different kinds of people.
Electric cars? I'd love to find the right one or build one - it's expensive and I've already spent ~$80k building the STI... it'll happen someday I'm sure. A manual CR-V with 60k miles? :) Definitely a keeper. One of my favorite things is driving a slow car fast. I would be really fun to build an old Honda Civic or Fit into a cup car.