BLEAH!!! AF mounts are disgusting!!!}]).
>
>You sound a little biased here...;-)

I D O N 'T T H I N K S O ! You decide.....:

Take two 20mm Nikkors, both in new condition, though the MF version has
been in use for a few years (both lenses are about the same price new):

The MF is made of finely machined metal parts that fit and feel good,
and which look like new, even after several year's use. The aperture
ring turns smoothly, with positive clicks at the engraved f numbers.
The focus ring is uniformly smooth throughout its range, without play, wobble, or noise when operated. The front of the lens shows no play
when grabbed. The filter threads are machined metal. The general
impression is that it is a well made, smoothly and precisely operating,
fine piece of photographic equipment, which can, with some care,
continue to look and feel good, even with considerable use.

The AF is made of plastic, which may be structurally fine, but it does
not impart the "feeling" of handling fine equipment, and it shows wear
from simple handling - it cannot be kept in "mint" condition, if used
at all. The aperture ring looks and feels "cheap". It is simple in shape,
has a slightly irregular edge, and has surface-painted f numbers. The
feel is somewhat irregular and sticky, and a bit like there is oatmeal inside. The aperture detents are not always precise. The focus ring has play, shows a touch of stickyness, produces noise when operated, and is
not perfectly smooth and uniform throughout its range. The front of the
lens shows play when grabbed, allowing slight tilting and shifting
(while this is normal for AF lenses, one does wonder about optical alignments, especially in lenses with floating elements......). When
new, the AF focus mechanism has all the unfortunate characteristics of
a badly worn MF focus mechanism. The filter threads are plastic. The
general impression is that the lens feels cheaply made, is somewhat imprecise in construction and operation, and cannot be enjoyed/kept
as a fine piece of photographic equipment - it is a "user" grade item,
at best.

What does the choice of the inferior AF barrel version of the same
optics get you? An incremental aperture read-out in the finder with
newer bodies, replacing an easy-to-read direct-readout that showed an analogue-precise readout of the actual setting of the aperture ring
(this is still true on the F3 [and older] bodies with AF lenses,
however). "D" metering with a couple of newer bodies, if you choose
to trust the "roll-of-the-dice" Matrix metering, instead of straight-forward-and-simple manual metering ("no lock button required!")
- and better flash exposures IF your subject is a bride in a white dress
(or a large black gorilla), but otherwise..... And auto-focus. (Hmmm....,
I keep hearing, as each new generation of AF bodies is introduced, that
NOW AF finally really works. So I put an AF lens on the new body, turn
the AF switch to "single AF", aim the lens at something, press the
shutter release lightly to activate AF, wait for it to [noisily]
complete its task, and check the finder to see how well it has done
its job. Unfortunately, in about 1/3 of the AF tries, the AF system
slightly misses the correct focus, and a correction can be made to
improve sharpness by moving the camera slightly after AF has, uh,
"focused" the lens [the misses can clearly be seen on the sharp Nikon VF screens {some other manufacturer's screens are less sharp, and it is
harder to MF with them, or check AF accuracy}].)
AF is OK for snapshooting, or when the lens is used at medium to small apertures, and under circumstances when MF is very difficult or
impossible, but if you care about maximizing sharpness, AF is still generally not the way to go, IM(NS)HO.