If you're buying a WRX or similar then the manual should be the only transmission you should be looking at.
As long as Subie continues to offer a stick in the WRX who cares. If adding a CVT increases sales and hopefully profit, maybe they can do more great cars in the future.
With respect, I really think enthusiasts need to tune into reality. I don't mean that to be offensive at all - but the reality is, as Quadzilla stated, why would you care whether there's an additional option? Don't select it if you don't want it. I, personally, will never purchase/lease/own a vehicle equipped with a manual transmission. I love the drive of 'em, but certainly not in traffic, and on the highway, who cares - you're not rowing much. It's something I save for the occasional time that I go and pay to do some laps on a track or while I'm on vacation in Europe.
If manuals make up ~3% of all vehicles sold in Canada, then a manufacturer making a car with that one sole transmission limits itself to that small niche market. It doesn't make business sense.
The CVT may have its shortcomings, but it has helped Subaru to fix its fuel efficiency woes, it offers the flexibility of fuel efficiency or sporting dynamics (I still wish that you could default to whatever SI setting you want, though), and it has allowed for things like X-mode in the Forester, and now torque vectoring in the WRX. It's not that they 'omitted' it from the manual, rather it's the CVT that enables them to do these things.
I, for one, would never have purchased a previous WRX because it was only offered with a manual. For that same reason, I will not even with the 2015 be in a position to buy the STI. I strongly am considering a WRX, with CVT, for purchase in July 2014 - if the price is right (a fairly big "if"). Any price increase would likely have me saying 'no thanks', but I can swing $35k on a versatile car like the WRX, which my lady can still drive (not that I'd ever let her).
What bugs me with the WRX redesign:
-no turn signals on the side mirrors looks rather...bland.
-tail lights look rather...bland.
-looks like they stuck with the same sh!t infotainment screen for the Navi as they have in the 2014 Forester (shocker...)
-not that I necessarily want it, but I don't see EyeSight offered. What's the deal?