What about when I pass through those white blocks to get Warp Whistles?  I can't see Mario at all behind the backdrops!  Mario 3's stupid camera is almost as busted as Sunshine's.

In those cases it is entirely intentional for effect.  It's not broken behavior.

So an automatically working camera trumps camera control.

When the automatic camera is always 100% adequate and never malfunctions, yeah.

Good, so that's what we're striving for here. Galaxy's gets closer than Sunshine, where neither the automatic camera nor manual one are even close to 100% adequate.

I love you people.

Time to get back on this again. While it may be impossible to change opinion on what game you enjoyed more it won't be hard to demonstrate some very important facts.

1. The problem people have with Sunshine's camera is its hover auto-rotation mechanic. This came about because of the Mario feel in that the game has a rigid linear type of movement when Mario has jumped (opposed to the non-linearity of jumps in other games like Jak & Daxter, Maximo, Super Mario 3D World, etc.), so the hovering matches that movement. It would produce discordance if you could whip yourself around in the air easily like in DK64 with Diddy Kong's jetpack.

2. The camera punishes non-synchronization. The camera will always be readjusting itself to stay within a range of a straight view that syncs with FORWARD MOVEMENT DESIGN of the game. Try running SIDEWAYS in Super Mario Sunshine (excluding athletic courses) and the camera will start to move to be behind Mario so that Mario is FORWARD. So, no, the camera is not going to let you hover BACKWARDS to produce FORWARD movement. No the camera is not going to let you hover SIDEWAYS because that does not produce FORWARD movement.

3. Super Mario Galaxy is undisputedly a downgraded game regarding the core components of Mario and the camera. The downgraded movement mechanics cannot be argued against because the moveset/inputs of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine have already been well documented and have shown they are less. The camera control mechanics are less compared to both games as well. But the big problem with the DOWNGRADE is that it prevents Mario games from moving FORWARD to having MASSIVE IMMERSION in an OPEN WORLD in which Sunshine was moving FORWARD towards. Why? Because Mario controls like a DOWNGRADED 3RD PARTY CHARACTER that does not build up momentum (i.e. one with a poor physics engine) and thus producing an easy way of satisfying developers in the genre by having the character literately STICK ON LANDINGS. While this makes platforming MORE EASY to manage it also makes it LESS FUN+COMPLEX+CHALLENGING of conquering MORE TERRAIN with MORE SPEED.

Mario v.64 cannot compete in an open world game with Mario v.SMS. Mario v.SMS can run up hills, speed across vast terrain with a water slide, speed across vast bodies of water with a hover nozzle, soar up mountains with a rocket nozzle, etc. Mario v.64 just cannot move around through large terrain without making the player feel like they are slow. So if you are not going to bulk up the world from a sandbox/playground to a park/world then you want Nintendo to NOT RELEASE MORE POWERFUL HARDWARE.

SMB3 is still the best.

Yep, I think THAT Mario v.SMB3 is THE best TOO.