Simon, nice review...you got a LOT of basic information across in a very reasonable amount of space ... I like that you paid particular attention to the details that consumers are likely to notice over ownership, but not necessarily during a test-drive. How thoughtful of you
Thanks for the kind words … it's nice to know that my efforts do occasionally land some arrows near the target!
... flooring it in "Eco" mode when you just start the car isn't nice for the engine either, but it's not disabled.
Agreed. The argument that reverting from Sport to Normal on restart is to save the engine seems unlikely. If that was really the intent, why not simply use the electronics to restrict how hard you can thrash the engine when cold, regardless of the mode?
The more likely reason is that by defaulting back to Normal mode, that's the mode the EPA will use for its fuel economy testing. Whereas if the car remained in Sport mode once you selected Sport mode, then the EPA would test in both modes and average the results, giving the car worse overall readings. See
http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2013/06/do-all-those-driving-modes-affect-a-cars-epa-gas-mileage.html