HVAC controls or others without glancing at them, I seriously call BS. It may only be a short glance, but I seriously doubt you don't take your eyes off the road at all when reaching for controls on the dashboard.
You don’t have to be a blue-hair or boomer to agree with the OP. (40 here)
As proven by study after study, real physical controls for vehicular use are superior to touch/soft controls, and will likely remain so. That is, until non-invasive EEG based stuff becomes reality. Plus, the voice controls still fail on the regular, and I’m in a major metro with solid cell coverage. I imagine that is worse in areas with weaker cell service.
FYI - I changed EQ settings & Subwoofer level in my Acura TL (odd giant knob control, up high on dash, in peripheral view), 1-10+ times per drive, without taking eyes off the road, nearly every time I drove it.
(wildy dif. music style on random, lol... miss that stereo too) While that level of familiarity with the physical interfaces/menu/setting trees took time to develop, it is sorely missed. Changing EQ in the 3 is super unsafe/annoying while driving. Way too hard really. Avoid it unless my ears/OCD are super pissed about how current track sounds.
Same with wipers. On the odd times it rains in this new climate change version of AZ, I miss changing wiper functions from feel alone too, as Tesla’s autowiper nonsense is pure reinventing the wheel garbage. They shoulda bought/integrated a 3rd party rain sensor system with real stalk controls, then used the saved capital to invest in predelivery QC & customer service training/staff.
Again, same with A/C control in my 3. When voice works its cool, but I change fan speed regularly. It would be SO much better if that could be done from muscle-memory alone.