It's not just about being able to select what to download, that's a minimal part of what makes DTA so useful.
Does it allow you to manage your downloads though - like supporting multi-source downloads, pausing and re-starting, exporting/ importing lists, prioritise, re-order, limit speed, integrating with the save dialog and menus ...
DownThemAll is the one extension that might force me to abandon firefox or to stick with an ESR release and not upgrade.
Thus, my phrasing "feature _subset_ _may_ be enough" :) . I used to use DTA for this subset and am happy about Download Star, but it's totally understandable you relied on more.
As for "not upgrade": do stay on ESR for as long as possible and hope more fully-formed alternatives for your favorite addons eventually arrive. But really, don't disable upgrades altogether and risk being pwned due to running an unpatched, insecure browser.
