I would recommend they add an arm rest to the passenger seat and a power lock switch to the passenger door in the power locks option. My Honda sales rep said regarding the latter that the Element was "Civic-class" and thus only got one power lock on the drivers' side! Hmmmm.....

Sounds like hogwash to me....cause when you lock the driver's door with the key it locks everything! So, it should unlock everything the same way.
Gotta be an American thing though ;) But there should be a electric lock on the passenger side as well. I have the "E" model and this model should have it all.

I'm learning to live without it but I'm thinking they could drop the rear sunroof and add some of these other creature comforts.

I second the call for a passenger side armrest. At the very least, this should be available as an option or an accessory.

[quote:1f4df716b9=" "]Sounds like hogwash to me....cause when you lock the driver's door with the key it locks everything! So, it should unlock everything the same way.
Gotta be an American thing though ;) But there should be a electric lock on the passenger side as well. I have the "E" model and this model should have it all.

I'm learning to live without it but I'm thinking they could drop the rear sunroof and add some of these other creature comforts.[/quote:1f4df716b9]

Over time I expect some of these things to happen. From reading I suspect that Honda's vehicles start out with lower levels of trim at introduction but begin to get additional positive tweaks as the model years go by for two reasons:

1) Simplicity makes debugging service issues easier: there simply will be less of them. Since early model years (assuming no major redesign) will tend to have more issues in general, this is a financial risk management issue.

2) As time goes on, the cost to manufacture each vehicle (both real and whatever the equivalent of "depreciation of the design cost over many years" is called) goes down. This allows them to keep the same price (even lower it some times) and add more attractive features to later models years to keep interest going in the new vehicles, both from new as well as "upgrading" buyers.

-brendan

PS - on the issue of the driver's side key locking all doors, but only unlocking the driver's side door: this is a security feature, presumably to reduce chances of carjacking or parking lot assaults.