There is advice floating around out there that to be a professional, shoot manual,

I’d amend that to : if you want to be a pro you should be able to use manual when you need it. It’s just another tool to be used when you need it. For those who haven’t used it, it’s nothing special; it just turns your camera into a ‘match needle’ camera (watch the little scale in the bottom of the viewfinder). Aaaand it’s sometimes handy.

As a landscape shooter using the zone system, manual is often easier than any of the automatic modes (especially as I’m left-eyed so my face is in the way of the hold button). If the scene is dark, I switch to full manual (no auto-ISO) as I don’t want the camera changing ISO based on calculated EV.

BTW/FWIW, Nikon DSLRs (and probably Z-cameras) have a fast-EV setting: if you’re in aperture priority, turning the speed dial sets an EV offset; if you’re in speed priority, you can do the same with the aperture dial. So it ‘feels’ like manual mode. I tend to not use it as I get confused about which mode I’m actually in. (sign of age? hope not.)