Having followed the discussion on the Yahoo list but never having used the manual notching (admittedly, I didn't even know it existed) feature, I fired up my system and did some playing.  What I noticed is that the manual notching only works on the currently selected unit and does not also notch the consisted trailing units.  Not sure if I am missing something I should have done or if this is just how it works.  As tested, this is a deal-breaker for me.  I would like to have been able to use manual notching as it seems like a more realistic way to present the function under varying conditions, but I am going to have to leave them all in auto when consisted, which in the case of my ABB set of E8s, is all the time.  Please, if anyone knows of a way to manually notch all units in a consist from the controls on the lead (1st) unit, let me know.  If there is none, perhaps this can be added to the list.