I always feel the jump in price from standard to nice rental car is too much to bother with (like a factor of 2.5-5x). So I drive a lot of crappy rentals, but they’re just a way to get from point to point.

Automatic transmissions (for EU where manual is popular - I guess this doesn’t apply in countries where everyone drives automatics already) are generally only available with higher trim levels and yet don’t cost much more to rent, so this might be an option to get a “nicer” rental.