Flappy paddles seem to be the fashion for autos at the moment. I am curious as to their intended usage.

At the moment I have a tiptronic gear lever. When I am going uphill and approach a false crest or tight corner, I can move it to M to stop it changing up when I lift. It is then simple to nudge it down if the corner opens up to a steeper hill. When the road opens out again, move the lever back to auto.

I recently hired a flappy paddle car for a short time and had a brief play. I nudged the down paddle and it changed down as expected. Except it did not lock in that gear and after a couple of seconds, it changed back up again. Also, the paddles only work to move to another gear - I could find no method of holding it in the gear it was in. So at one point I was on a motorway on a gradient where I had to make small speed adjustments for traffic that caused it to hunt. I would have locked it if I knew how to.

How are flappy paddles used to deal with those situations?

There will probably be a way to turn it into "semi-auto/manual" mode. In my sisters vauxhall you move it to the left/right when in Drive and it'll let you choose (but will still change down when required automatically).

The car had a rotary selector between the seats but apart from PRND it only had an S setting. In other cars I have only found this to set a higher low rpm threshold (much higher than I would choose in a manual) and make silly brmm brmm noises when braking. It may have stopped the hunting on the motorway incline but it wouldn't have informed me about using the paddles.

Unless, that is, S in this car (a Mondeo) is not a programmed mode and gives control (between the rev limits) entirely to the paddles? Is there a case for suggesting that paddles are fashion over usefullness?