Well speaking as someone who uses a similar system in an IS350, I use a combination of the paddles/stick every time I drive so I'm in Manual mode 99.9% of the time. I generally only use the stick on side streets when I'm making a bunch of low speed 90 degree turns which forces my hands to come off the wheel to rotate. In the mountains or on the freeway I'm always on the paddles since that allows my hands to maintain contact with the wheel.
The only time I've ever made that "shift into Neutral" mistake was when I left the car in Auto because I was inattentive and didn't move the stick far enough to engage Manual
Solution, ALWAYS put the car in Manual and you should never shift into neutral no matter which input you use.
Now, that is assuming this transmission uses the same logic that mine does, which is giving you manual control of your top gear, but still making downshifts for you if you go too slow for the selected gear. I.E. - I can force the car to never go above 3rd gear and ping off the rev limiter all day, but if I slow down then mash on the pedal to accelerate, the car will automatically drop into 1st/2nd gear as needed even though it says I've selected 3rd gear. So, if I feel like being lazy I stick the car in 6th gear and it functions exactly like it would had I left the car in full auto.
Does this car do that, or does it actually just hold the gear you've selected no matter what? I once used my friend's tiptronic GTI which just held the selected gear and it drove me nuts trying to re-adapt
