Exactly what I thought would be the case. This forum is for enthusiast Maserati drivers, not the typical purchaser. I have manual, full auto and manual hydraulic clutch paddleshift cars in my fleet, and when choosing my GC, went for the autobox for the reasons Dickie states. My experience of the Vanquish with a paddleshift manual (very similar to the MC shift I think), is that its a total pain in the a.se in traffic, reversing is a pain (especially uphill where you can smell the clutch burning), the auto function is terriby jerky and the clutch wear is very high per mile compared to that of a manual.
With replacement parts alone for the Aston clutch at over £3k, this is def not suitable as a daily driver IMO. Mine is just a concours garage queen, doing about 300 miles per annum, so not a problem for me, but doing about 3k miles in the GC, I'm glad I chose the auto, that seems to suit the GT/Cabrio brief far better than the MC IMO.