I'm not a fan of the SMG myself (or equivalents from other manufacturers) nor is anyone else I know. But it's not really because of any real performance metric. SMG is far better at changing gears than any of us mortals could accomplish. But it's just not fun.

If you didn't like yours for the same reason I don't know if you'd like the new iterations. You're still not doing the shifting yourself.

ps. Your project looks interesting and I signed up for the mailing list. The success page said an email had been sent but I haven't received anything. Not sure if there's a long delay or it's a bug.