I’m wondering whether I should take this extra step.
The autohinter in use is the AFDKO autohint function. We recommend you set your stems and zones first, and then use the autohint option. Then you test it in an app like InDesign and only manually fix the glyphs the autohinter didn’t get right the first time.
Yup, I’m aware of that. My problem is that it looks good (obviously) in OSX and OK in InDesign, but crappy in Windows.
If it looks good in Indesign, there is nothing you can do do improve the rendering in Windows except of using TrueType. You might be able to use ttfautohint but if not you need to manually hint the font.
I’m fine with doing manual hinting, I’d only like to see some comparison examples (if there is any).
I don’t keep any comparison screenshots around. Frankly, I doubt they would make any sense. Manual hints can be well or badly done, sometimes autohints work fine, sometimes they don’t. Different with every project. Depends largely on the regularity of the curves and the placement of their extremum points.