> My worry with a large number of modern tech heavy cars will be that while the centralisation of a lot of these controls and features into one panel may be convenient to the user

Centralization of controls into a single touchscreen is most certainly not convenient to the user, because touchscreens suck [1]. What is convenient is the thoughtful deployment of physical controls in ergonomic locations.

[1] Touchscreens are really only a good choice in situations where there's extreme space constraints, or as an enhancement to existing controls for very specific interactions where they make sense.