Obviously they are more CPU-hungry, but I would think a lot of users would be able to use them.
I don't know if the CMX viewer uses roughly the same engine as LFS itself but if it does it probably wouldn't be too difficult or time-consuming to implement the more detailed shadows in-game? Naturally just as a option.
Indeed if there are 4 seconds extra in your laptimes, it might do you some good to be able to concentrate just on the throttle/brakes/steering. After a while though, you will want to switch to manual to be able to keep up with.. well, anybody.
I don't get it... I feel my custom view which shows the top of the dash, some a-pillar and the hood is more realistic than the cockpit view - it's not as if i would see two steering wheels and two pairs of hands etc when driving a real car... I think this is the first bad call I've seen Scawen make.
The X test patches include fixes and improvements which will be present in patch Y. So yes, they're partially X-fixes and 100% pre-Y development. (obviously, as Y hasn't been released yet...)