2011 F-250 SD FX4 w/ 6.2 gasser and automatic w/170k milage.

I have a few questions I hope someone might enlighten me....PLEASE.

I drive with a very light touch on the gas pedal, I have drop foot on my right foot, which means I can't lift my foot up using my ankle to take my foot off the gas. I must lift my leg, and yeah, it's a PITA.
This is when I notice my otherwise great shifting of my tranny gets kind of weird.
Under load or pulling my trailer (9.5k) it shifts fine, no slip, bang, up and down, no problem, but when I am just driving surface streets, I think it wants to shift, just as I am lifting my foot/leg off the gas pedal, and all of a sudden it acts like it was shifting, but now not needing to shift, kind of in lala-land, and sometimes when it does choose a gear, its more abrupt and not as smooth as when pulling a load or under acceleration....
I tried using the manual shift option on my steering wheel, and I liked it, but again, I am lazy too which made me wonder more about how it all works together. My truck will shift into 6th gear while staying under the speed limit of say 30 MPH and only 1100 or so RMP/s..... is that good? I thought "lugging" a motor is no good for it and why a tranny has the set power range/shift pattern for optimizing performance of the engine?????
I know when I shift manually, it seems to drive more like I would expect a stick shift and clutch truck would with much less shifting needed around town, etc.....

Am I making any sense?

Oh, can I shift into M while moving in D without hurting anything, will it move into the right gear at that point?

Thanks, sorry for being an idiot but if I don't ask I will never learn.

 

The shifting you are experiencing is pretty normal .
I can't answer the second question about shifting to M while in Drive , maybe the owners manual will enlighten you .
I have a BMW , with the sport shift/manual option , and I can shift to the sport / manual mode just fine , finds the correct gear , and let's me chose.

 

You can shift between D and M at any time, even at speed. When going from D to M the transmission will stay in whatever gear it was using in D.

 

Thanks guys..... I did read up on it in the manual and saw where it had that shifting and speed chart, so what I did is locked out 4th and 5th gear while driving around town, and it worked perfectly......