Thanks!
I can take or leave the cooled seats. My wife thinks they're cool (pun intended) though.
The paddles react just as fast as the console shifter from what I can tell. They're both spring-loaded "momentary" switches, and so are probably simply wired in parallel. I've never tried gearing "up" on the paddle while gearing "down" on the console at the same exact time. Probably open a black hole or something.
Anyway, if you don't touch the paddle or console shifters for a certain length of time, it reverts back to "drive". Although, it seems to depend on circumstance, which I haven't quite figured out yet.