I noticed a hesitation on the 4.8 that I test drove the second time. I don't notice it on mine at all though.

I like the shifter. It's quick and easy to use, once you're used to it. I will agree that the parking brake should disengage automatically when you go into gear. The cool thing here is that this could simply be a software upgrade to make it do that.

I actually like the idrive, combined with voice control. I will say that Audi's system is better, and faster. My two complaints about the idrive system is its speed (slow) and in the navigation when trying to find stores or gas stations, etc. You have to go through a series of menus. I would really rather just be able to type "best buy" and let it tell me the closest one. Every other nav system allows this. Hopefully BMW will add this function.