The steering wheel is smiling at me and the passenger side dash looks like a boy with a crush on his teacher asking her a question.

 

It's about time. That is one of my biggest dislikes about my '09. Should have been like that from the first!

 

I have a tundra with the console shifter and its forward for up and backwards for down. I dont understand what you mean by down to upshift.

I hope it does have the display on the dash somewhere to tell you what gear you are in like the toyota.

 

I had a 2007 Tundra prior to getting my F150, also with the console shifter. The gear display on the Tundra is not what gear you are in, but rather what gear the tranny is allowed to shift up to. So, if it says 4, you could actually be in 3 but the tranny will not shift beyond 4. This is a very misunderstood feature.

The new F150s, from what I've read, have 2 modes. Mode 1 operates similar to the Tundra in that you tell it what gear the tranny can shift up to. Mode 2 allows true manual control where you tell the tranny exactly what gear to use and it will hold in that gear until the driver shifts up or down. Plus, I also read that it will show you what gear you are actually in. Pretty cool stuff.

 

thats the same kind of setup on the Chevy cars...

 

One article said they revised the tranny with a one way roller clutch to fix the harsh shift.