So long as the vents have analog dials that manipulate how much air is coming out. Otherwise I'd have to be pro left/right temperature difference. When it's 100 degrees out side and someone says the AC is to cold it blows my mind

Except backup cameras. Everything else is bad

I want to set my hvac to a temp and let it sort out whether it should heat or cool.

How fast do you want it, how hot do you want it, where do you want it

It's really interesting that I agree with you, but so many people insist that they're new and fancy tools are somehow making their lives significantly better. And obviously it's an opinion question, it's not like they're lying, but I just don't see the value that many of them do.

My honda civic has this perfectly balanced (this is a stock photo):

Oh, there is. I love having a set of controls separate from the passenger side.

If you truly believe this, replace your home thermostat with the same controls. Live with that shit for awhile.

Honestly. I prefer my current EVs AC. I have set it to 21 degrees when I first got it and I haven't touched it since.

I don't like "more cold" or "more hot" dials. I know what I like, 21 degrees and if the car can keep exactly that? I'm happy.

Oh Look at Mr fancy pants here with his working heater in his reasonable priced car!

It's -5C/23F outside, you hop in the car, winter boots and thermal layers. Your climate control's lowest setting is 16C/61F. You have two options: personal sweaty sauna or drive in your winter jacket with frozen hands.

Other options: blast heat with windows down. Full AC, just get it over with.

I long for the days it was two horizontal sliders. Cold to left, slide to the right the warmer you wanted. Low to the left, slight to the right for high fan. Now it's all this digital horse shit and it takes years of me being bored at red lights to be motivated to explore all the menu drudgery on the console. Now it all has fucking wifi and tracker nonsense too.

One of my knobs broke and to this day, I can't work out how to replace it. Where do you even buy them from??? 🙃

Hard disagree. Physical buttons with a digital temperature and split controls for left and right (and maybe rear as well). Automatic climate control that also does the fans. I had all of this on a car in 2010, and it was perfect - I could just leave the temperature set at what I wanted all the time, and the fans would blow hard if it needed to heat or cool significantly to get there.

Some manufacturer's, eg Volvo, don't automatically adjust the fans, which is wank. But nothing is as wank as touch screen controls - I fucking hate it when you're trying to aim at a button, then as you go in to press the car bumps and you completely miss.

However you probably don't miss the manual choke valve, double clutching, hand winded starter crank, or even window cranks.

There was really no golden period of car controls. It went fluidly from one kind of shit to another kind of shit.