my guess is cost...at least with the Hemi. there were no real R&D costs involved with putting the viper drivetrain in the ram, so the manual trans didnt cost dodge anything to put it in the 1500 with the viper engine..it was made to be there, in theory. then, so many people cried when they bought a 50,000 dollar srt10 ram, and found that it wouldnt tow their various cars...so they put together a trans that would bolt up to the viper engine, and which would handle the strain of towing, which i understand that the viper trans will not, although lots of people tow with the M6 RCs...
so many people nowadays cant drive a stick, and thats why i think that dodge didnt bother with the R&D/engineering costs behind making a manual trans that would handle the power of the hemi in the ram...
also, their "market tests" probably showed that the manual hemi ram wouldnt sell well...
