I was like that with manually locking hubs until I finally got a truck that wasn't. I know tacos had manual locking hubs available til 99. To get out of a truck in the middle of winter or other questionable tractionYep. Had the same setup on every truck I owned for nearly 30 years, but now they're unavailable in most vehicles. It'd be one thing if market demand forced vehicle manufacturers this way, we can blame market demand for auto transmission. But I've never heard of ANYONE preferring a push-button transfer case over a manual lever with instant responsiveness and absolute certainty it's engaged.
area's to lock the hubs was a bit of a peeve of mine. And on a few occasions I pushed it to far til I was getting stuck. Where I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have gotten in that situation if I could have just shifted into 4x4 from the cab.