Personally, I prefer a manual, but after driving Honda's CVT, I'm convinced it's the way to go. IF YOU ACTUALLY NEED AN AT.
The CVT's efficiency versus a traditional automatic is immensely greater. The mere deletion of the torque converter makes it as light as a manual transmission.
It's smooth, quick to accelerate (given that the car I was using it on was a 1.3) and, quite frankly, boring. But hey, it's great for saving gas. You'd have to drive very very well to beat a CVT's consumption in traffic. Of course, Honda's CVT sucks at putting power down. While it keeps 0-60 times in the same range as the manual (actually, just as fast or faster, depending on who's driving the stick), flogging it produces a nice, aromatic "burnt clutch" fragrance.
But most traditional ATs, even the newer 5ATs, don't do their engines any justice at all, blunting acceleration at the low end, which, thanks to traffic, is where most of us spend our time, anyway.
I kind of like VAG's DSG, because it manages to maintain the weight advantage and performance of a manual and by design, manages to package gears better (a problem with tightly packed boxes... which causes some compacts to have fragile gears), but the CVT is probably the simplest solution for future ATs.
And the only additional wear item is the belt itself... which probably won't cost much more than a clutch to replace.
