Dodge pickup trucks had the spinny knob back in the early 2000s. We had one at work and it was awful. The problem is it doesn’t give good feedback about what gear you’re selecting. The designers gave it a lockout system to keep you from putting it in an unintended gear, but that gets counterintuitive in certain situations so you’d wind up fighting with it. It really made me appreciate how perfect a good old lever on the column is as a gear selection interface.
“The problem is it doesn’t give good feedback...”
That was it...very little “feeling” you were selecting the right gear. I think it actually frightened me a little worrying about tearing out the transmission.