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Besides being stuck out of gear with no syncromesh, some of the no-coasting rules may date back to the days before hydraulic brakes, when you needed engine braking to assist your 100% mechanical stopping force.
Speaking about braking, one issue I have with engine off coasting is no vacuum to the power brake system. While I learned to drive without power assisted brakes in the previous century, today even sub-compacts have power brakes. And the amount of pedal effort these systems need to slow or stop with no vacuum is multiples of the effort in the older systems.
While I have toyed with the idea of adding an electric vacuum pump from a truck or bus to allow full assisted braking with the engine off, I would not try POC again without that mod.
I will stick to just putting the manual transmission in neutral for now. (Though the ScanGuage shows less gallons per hour fuel flow in gear than idling going down a hill, go figure.) And I always turn off the engine while waiting my turn at the bank drive-up or a flagger-controlled one-lane road construction area.
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