The old manual transmission wasn't really more realistic all the time.
For example, when a remote port or GV base suddenly got raided by an airborne mission, my reaction was not to up an Ostwind or (later) Wirbel, but to roll a Tiger out of the VH before it went down. With the old transmission, it was so incredibly nimble that I was able to dodge almost all bombs thrown at me, while the AA vehicles got easily strafed down. Very often that bought us enough time for friendly air cover to reach that port. I got over 500 plane 'kills' in the Tiger by doing this, basically all of them just proxies face planting next to my tank.
This entirely unrealistic thing stopped with the removal of manual transmission and driver's position, the Tiger could no longer bomb waltz that way.