I live in the mountains and use the paddle shifters on every drive. I rarely use my brakes and find the paddle shifters an excellent way to moderate speed. If I lived in the flatlands I don’t imagine they would be as useful.

 

You can always tell who's lived in mountains and who's lived in flat areas all their life by how often you see brake lights when descending. Modern brakes are so much better than they used to be that overheating is a very rare thing unless you're coming down from the Rockies, but I'd hate to see their brake service bill.