i see this thread has really gotten active with you and i mostly agree with it, but I didn't see anyone pointing out your description of cruise controlled cars being a blockade in the middle. I definitely don't see it that way with my adaptive cruise control (i never ever use regular cruise control anymore). Even at the closest follow distance setting, I am always about 2 cars distance from the one i am following. I have only ever used my one particular adaptive cruise control (subaru impreza) so I am not sure if other car models tend to follow closer and block the ability to change lanes.

>You will just have to put your signal on and take a spot, even if it puts you much too close to the guy in front with someone much too close to your bumper

This description makes me think you're talking about stop and go traffic, or at least where the entire highway is mostly saturated. At that point I hardly think any one particular lane is going faster/slower than the rest but that could be wrong. In this case though, I don't use cruise control because I mentally switch over to the mode of "gas and brake the least possible" to even the flow of traffic and not contribute to brake snakes.

edit: oh i see in some other comments you're talking about 3 lane i-5, I have only been on mostly 2 lane sections of i-5 where it's just trucks on the right and people waiting in a line to pass said trucks on the left... but three lanes I haven't had any issues