A few impressions and an idea:
I've done a few drives with auto-steer and auto-lane-change enabled, and wow, this is great. Admittedly, most of my drives have been short freeway drives in fairly heavy SF Bay Area traffic, and I'm a little skittish about letting the car take control, and my hands have never been more than an inch away from the wheel. We've got some longer drives planned for this weekend and I'm looking forwarding to giving the system a better work-out. But overall I'm pretty impressed at the smoothness of lane-keeping and lane-changes...not quite the way I'd drive but pretty good for a machine. Some people mentioned the car preferring one side of the lane to another...I've noticed that too. I'm hoping this will only improve over time.
The new UI definitely takes some getting used to. I like the new aesthetics (flatter, darker), seems easier on my eyes.
But geez I really miss the speed tapes (er, analog speedometer and instantaneous power meter). I understand that when you're running in AP mode (or getting ready to engage it) you want the car sensor data, the miniature car, etc. But if I'm driving totally manually, I'd much rather have the old instrument cluster.
OK. The idea (insert disclaimers about possibly having missed this in the hundreds of posts, which I *have* tried to read, or maybe having overlooked some reason this can't work):
Right now in the initial 7.0 software, the button that used to enable or disable TACC doesn't do anything. Why not make that button a toggle between "fully manual" and "AP ready" modes? In "fully manual" mode, TACC and AP are disabled and we get the speedometer / power meter dial from 6.2, or alternatively the IC dial that 7.0 gives to the non-AP cars (with the analog speedometer and power meter, i.e. this:
#22). Push the button and it toggles to "AP ready" mode, with the miniature car and sensor data (what AP cars have now). When you're done with AP, hit the button again to get back the analog instruments.
Feel free to flame away, just give me a few seconds to put on my asbestos suit.