Wow. 2 and a half months later and I have to eat my words. Tesla had a good idea offering a free trial period of EAP to those that didn't include the option in their original order. I took advantage of it and used it as much as possible to see if it would be something that I could use more than just occasionally. My work commute is half highway/half city streets. The highway part is generally backed up at several places in the morning. Putting the car into TACC really does relieve the tedium of stop-n-go-n-stop-again. I only have to keep left (in the fast lane) to allow the motorcycles to pass safely. It's why I generally don't use Autosteer (AS) in the mornings but will activate it on the drive home in the evening when there's less traffic. I'm also still leery of using AS. I keep finding myself trying to gently tug the wheel a little bit to the left or right when I'm passing another vehicle. AS keeps the car in the middle of the lane, whereas I try to give some more room. I'm planning to drive down to L.A. next month with the wife and I'll see how much I use the automation. She is not very keen on the idea of me using EAP when she's in the car.
In the end, I decided that having it, even at a $500 penalty, was worth it to me (better than the extra $1000 it was previously). Sure it would be nice to be able to purchase TACC and AS separately or EAP to be offered at a lower cost but Tesla is out to make money on this endeavor so I guess I can't fault them too much. I do like the prospect of getting new functionality via OTA updates in the future.