So first off, don't get me wrong, I love having 8 gears.. and I love the IS-F's transmission. Most of the time.

The problem is - cities with ridiculously low speed limits. I live in a pretty big area in SoFla so our average speed on surface roads here is 45-50, with interstate being 55-70. The -F does great in these conditions.

Now, where I am going to be moving (back) to, it's completely opposite. All streets have "artificially" low speed limits as I would call them. Most of the speed limits are set without reason and are NOT residential areas but actual major city roads. About 75% of the posted speed limits are 35MPH, with the rest being a mix of 30(!), 40, and 45. The -F does not like this.

Cruising at 35 in the -F keeps it in 7th gear.. it is just WAITING for 8th gear to hit. As soon as you touch 41mph (in auto mode), 8th is instant. As soon as you drop below 39-40, back to 7th you go. As you can imagine, in a city with speed limits of mostly 30-40, my transmission is going to be doing a lot more (obvious) work than it needs to, and quite frankly it will drive me crazy...

This is pretty much a rant with no definite end. I'm not sure what to do. Obviously "going above 40 all the time" is not the answer..

I think 8 gears is too many, but not for the same reasons. In my LS, a sudden request for a downshift leaves the car confused for a minute, wondering which gear to drop to. Then it often selects too low a gear and we go hauling ass to redline just to get past some soccermom in a Tahoe.

I actually think it would be better to cap it at 6 speeds. That's enough to span all urban and suburban needs, and still leaves you a high gear or two for highway cruising. Mucking it up with too many ratios just confuses the issue ... and I'm convinced Lexus did it just to outdo M-B with their 7-speed.

Honestly, I'm not too impressed with Lexus' 8-speed.

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i'm continually surprised at how often my car drops a gear when cruising at "somewhat" constant speed.  But am rarely unhappy with the 7spd transmission in the M.