AT Manual Mode Easter Egg?
 

I'll admit I haven't read the entire owner's manual for the car, but over the last few days I just realized that on the AT cars you can use the paddle shifters (but not the stick) to force up or down shifts even when you are in drive. The car will remain in whatever gear you've forced it to for 5-10 sec, then transition back to drive.

Has anyone else found this? Seems like a nice feature.

Its the way its programmed. My DSG GTi did the same thing. Its like used for when you want to pass and dont want to push the pedal far enough to force the transmission to downshift.

Yeah. That's pretty standard on a semi auto tranny like this. My Aunts Mini was the same way