I am aware that a stick shift has better "feel", but if that is the comparison (as I am assuming due to you mentioning the R34) a dual clutch is superior in every other way except weight.
Sure, feel is very important, but refusing to even drive one ?
Not judging, genuinely curious.
I think the argument is that the better "feel" is far more important than these engineering figures.
Every paddle shift car I've driven (single clutch, dual clutch, conventional automatic), I just leave in auto mode. I don't find the paddles fun or engaging at all. I play with them for a few minutes, then let it do its automatic thing. I'm perplexed by people who use the paddles 95%+ of the time. If it's a superfluous action, I just stop doing it. (and then find myself annoyed it's in the wrong gear!)
I didn't say I refused to drive the R35, I just wouldn't buy one. I'd enjoy the _hell_ out of driving one.
This is kind of like saying an engineered protein smoothie is better in every way than a steak.
Most of us are not driving around town doing time attacks. Driving "feel" is really the only thing that matters for enthusiasts.,
Where the ZF-8 wins is stop & go traffic. The DCT will do its very best to minimize slip, where the ZF-8 just doesn't lock up the lock-up clutch.
But once you're moving the DCT was butter smooth, with selectable engagement speed.
My Ford did this and it was a bad coilpack every time, but I have no other issues like that. I'll have to see if mine is DCT?
It's also butter smooth compared to contemporary peer DCTs, like the getrag box that was thrown in the Ferrari 458 and AMG GT, though I personally prefer the feel of being kicked back into your seat at full throttle + highway speeds from the getrag box. It's fun, but not quite as punishing as a hard launch in a Model S Plaid, which feels more like the car is trying to relocate your kidneys to about 3 feet behind you.
The one exception to the smoothness of Nissan's DCT is slow right hand turns in 1st or 2nd. It seems to not want to upshift as quickly as you'd think it ought to in that situation more often than I would've preferred. But that's more of a minor QoL thing than a real problem, IMO.
A much bigger problem with the R35 is that if it ever gets towed without a flatbed (i.e. rear wheels on road), you grenade most of the drivetrain (including the DCT), and that's like $20k+ in parts before you even start counting labor.
Likewise, stick shift vs autotragic is just not the same thing.
Motorcycle track rider here. They're generally slower than performance cars around the track due to reduced cornering traction and therefore speed.
AWD with active Yaw control sticks to the road at nearly any speed, a motorcycle can only lean so far.
I agree that DCTs are great. Modern DCTs are amazing. I don't personally feel that DCTs take away from the driving experience at all.
It does get tiresome when people become snobby about driving stickshift, though.
What's nice is finally the market is catching up with the manual (again).
It used to be the performance choice.
When the automatics/twin clutches got good in the 2000/2010 era, a lot of performance cars preferred the faster/easier transmission, and the people spending new-car money on performance cars opted for it (or were forced into it).
As with many things, the new-car-money people aren't a cross section of the enthusiast community, they have different preferences. Some want the latest tech, some want their expensive purchase to be easy to drive every day, etc.
But the used market has always valued the manual more highly than the new car market, and the lower-and-lower take rate of the manual in new cars means the values of the manual are stronger than ever. However, I can't remember a time when an automatic or twin clutch pulled more $ on the used market.
So that transmission specifically is definitely to be avoided.
I do think there are some tuners that have beefed it up.
There is no factory launch mode on R35. That a snow mode that was misused as launch control, that's why nissan yanked warranty.