[thaumasiotes]

My 2002 Toyota Corolla might (does) have relatively few options for what you can adjust, but it certainly doesn't have cycling buttons requiring you to look at a tiny digital display. It doesn't have a display at all. The buttons are all labeled with what they do. The climate control is dials. Want to warm the passenger side a bit? Your option is to warm the whole car. Set the temperature dial to warm and the mode dial to (most likely) floor.

Your pre-1990 estimate is way, way, embarrassingly off, at best.

[ahlatimer]

Hell, my 2013 Subaru BRZ has dials and buttons for the A/C. Granted, there's a display that shows you the temperature, but if you want it warmer, you don't have to look at it unless you really want to set it to a specific temperature. If you want it warmer, just turn it a few clicks to the right. Same goes for the passenger (it's dual-zone). There are loads of 2014s out there that don't have the automatic climate control, even. It's the same, old system that you see on cars from pre-1990.

Contrast this to the sound system, which only has a volume knob. Jumping to the next track requires you to hit a small touchscreen button that offers no tactile feedback. It's frustrating to do it while driving.

IMO, there's a good middle-ground here. There are a lot of settings and features on my sound/navigation system that I don't need to access all the time, or really at all while driving. Bass is too high? I can wait until I come to a light. That stuff can remain touchscreen driven since it offers more flexibility in the design and allows you to build in a lot more features than you'd have otherwise without cluttering your dash with a ton of buttons and knobs. But stuff that I mess with pretty often, like skipping to the next song, should be a physical button. Other head units get this right.