Pan drain and refill on transmission fluid

Chum lee wrote:


IMO overdoing maintenance is potentially just as harmful as under doing it or not doing it at all. Unless you have specific reasons not to (heavy towing, racing, operation in extreme cold/dust/humidity, etc.) follow the recommendations in your owners manual and use the appropriate fluids/parts.

I agree for the cases when the owners manual information is correct, but how do you cherry pick what is good and not good advice from the owners manual? For instance, Volkswagen and Audi use automatic transmissions built by Aisin and ZF. The owners manuals say the ATF is "lifetime", "sealed for life", etc. There's no way provided to check the ATF level, and adding fluid is beyond reasonable without a lift and vehicle-specific code reader. The same model transmissions are used by other auto makers that specify an ATF change interval. Which owners manual is right?