So since I've hit the 500 mile mark on my gears I've been able to play around a bit. The car is noticeably quicker to accelerate, full stop. I still haven't tried anything from a dig yet. MPG seems relatively unaffected (my commute is mostly city so it's crap anyway, like 25 tops). Probably the most useful thing for daily driving I've noticed thus far is on arterials (like 35-40 mph), a single downshift (as opposed to the balls-out two gear drop you get when you floor it in auto mode) actually gets you going, whereas before you really had to go whole hog with it.
I've yet to actually quantify any of the perceived improvements, but I received some excellent third party feedback. My girlfriend, who drives my car every once in a while (read: after the bars when I've had a few too many) had to drive it while we were helping a friend move. The first thing out of her mouth after she got back was this: "So I understand that gear thing you did on your car now."
