Pretty much anyone’s car in the US is an automatic.
Well, that’s another benefit – “pretty much anyone” CAN’T drive your MT car.
Feeling superior? 
I’ve owned and driven stick shifts since the 1970s (female, US, and including 18-speed tractor trailers) but it’s never occured to feel “superior” about it. People either learned to do it, or they didn’t.
And although I truly mourn the passing of stick shifts and thoroughly enjoy driving them, it’s becoming an anachronistic skill and not that useful, at least in the US.
Sort of like knowing how to milk a cow, rebuilding a carburetor, darning socks, reading (paper) maps, writing letters, butchering your own chickens and hand-cranking a car to start it. All highly useful skills at some point (and incidentally, all things I learned to do but that are no longer relevant to me) but technology marches on.
What are these “paddles” you whippersnappers are rambling on about? 
I swear when I first saw that I read “… butchering your own children.”
A useful, if controversial, skill for every age!
Perhaps not so much ‘feeling superior for being able to drive a manual’ as contempt for the automatic - see the people calling it a ‘slushbox’, for example. Some folks don’t, but more of those who routinely drive a manual do, I think.
Mind you, Americans who go out into the Wide World may be in for a bit of a shock, but I suspect that they can usually get an automatic in an rental, even in auto-hostile ( 
) countries.
All manual here - and two out if three are non-synchro first gear.
I purposely went back to a manual after 10 years of driving automatics due to the wife not being able to drive a stick. I have learned a lesson that Dodge doesn’t know how to make a smooth clutch and shifter, and have since second-guessed my choice. I do enjoy the control of driving a manual, but only if it’s a decent shifter. Time will tell if I will do it again. I did instruct the wife on how to move my car in the driveway when I last washed the cars, and she did OK. She said it was too much work working three pedals, and doesn’t understand why the hell I would want to do that purposely.
Are you saying that you deliberately picked a car your wife can’t drive, because she can’t drive it?
What is it? One of my (manual) cars is a Dodge, and the clutch and shifter are just fine.
Back in the day, I had a 97 Ford Contour with a stick, and that was the car I had when I met the wifey. She had always said she wanted to learn how, but whenever I brought it up, she always said she wasn’t ready. So, I resorted to automatics for my next two cars. I just told her that I really wanted a stick for the next one since I missed the experience, and stuck to my guns. She’ll have to learn eventually.
I’m not saying it’s across the board. In fact, I would love to find another Caliber SE with the stick to compare, but of course thay’re not an easy find. As of late, I think it may be partially due to the fact that I have no tachometer, and I like my music on the loud side, so I really can’t judge engine speed for the clutch take-up. The shifter is clunky though, and sometimes finding the gate from 2 to 3 is tricky. Of course, I think this may have something to do with the shifter eminating from the bottom of the dash instead of the floor like most vehicles.
If you do it right, clutch wear when engine braking is minimal. You have to match engine RPMs, and it doesn’t require a tach either. Use your ear and you can also feel it if engine RPM is matched properly. Engine braking should not mean slip the clutch until it’s engaged. If that’s how one does it, then yes your clutch will wear out faster.
I engine brake often. I’ve put 205,000 miles on my car and it’s still on the original clutch and going strong (so far). In San Francisco, over the Sierra Nevada passes, in the Coastal Mountains, engine braking on descent will save your brakes and give you better control of your car.
On steep downgrades, engine braking could even save your life by not frying your brakes - Old Priest Grade Road, coming west on Hwy 120 out of Yosemite, west of Groveland and Big Oak Flat and before Mocassin, is quite steep although not all that long. Dropping down Sonora Pass on Hwy 108 eastbound right after cresting its summit is not as steep but is much longer - you can burn your brakes on both roads if you’re not careful.
By drive train failure I hope you’re only talking of the clutch plate and not of anything else (gears/tranny, U-joints, CV joints, etc). It’s the clutch plate that bears the brunt of the wear and tear when engine braking.
Yes, engine braking does add wear and tear to the entire drive train but that can be drastically minimized if it’s done correctly. Even clutch wear can be minimalized so as to be almost trivial.
I wouldn’t have gotten my car if heated leather seats and a sunroof weren’t available with the manual transmission. 
Nice!
Oh, it’s a very nice car: the aforementioned sunroof and heated seats, Bluetooth hands-free calling, 6-disc in-dash CD player (that reads MP3s), an iPod connector, heated side mirrors, XM radio, etc. The V6 is the top trimline.
It’s just not a sports car. 
Mrs. Tango insists my next car must have heated seats!
BTW, my motorcycle has them. They’re nice when it’s chilly and there’s still hundreds of miles to go.
Yeah, on mountainous terrain like yours, engine braking is a must. Even in an automatic I was taught from an early age what those numbered gears below “D” mean (usually 2-1, sometimes 3-2-1) and when driving through the mountain states at 16, used them to great effect.
On flat terrain, though, it’s usually unnecessary. I assume (hope) GMLS2 is talking about driving in that type of terrain.
I’ve owned four cars in my life, and two have been manuals. If given the choice, I would always drive a manual, but I’m currently in a financial and family situation where beggars can’t be choosers, so I drive an automatic. (Stupid “mom” car. Pfft.)
I am not talking about engine braking as some particular technique, as you seem to be doing. I just mean in regular driving, even on the flat. In a manual, whenever you lift your foot of the throttle, engine braking causes the car to slow down more than it would in an automatic (at least, in an automatic with a slushbox). No gear changes or RPM matching involved. And people accustomed to manual gearboxes notice the lack of retardation when they drive automatics.
Yes, you can also slow the car down by actually shifting to a lower gear, hopefully matching revs and all that.