I repair more VW manual boxes than ever DSG's
The DSG has very robust internals indeed we've fitted LSD's in many now and do have a good dig around whilst in there agreed some early cars can suffer from mechatronic issues (many have been properly sorted now)
At one time we ran two Ed30 in house demo cars running the same mods both circa 400+ hp (one DSG one manual)
I would sware blind the manual was quicker than the DSG as it always felt more aggressive but run them side by side (which we did quite a lot) and the DSG car would pull out lengths easy every time on the manual
If you have a DSG transmission get it mapped with good software end of !!! You will love it (especially the cannon firing noise WOT shifting on the limiter !!
)
Manual VW / Audi boxes are beautifully fluid and very capable so plz don't think I'm against them cos I'm not, I like them both
IMHO DSG is the future more and more are being developed by all the major car manufacturers full stop