Comment by residentraspber

I've found one good solution to this problem (for AC, at least): go for a car with a good "auto" mode!

I hardly ever touch my AC, I just leave it on auto and the car does the rest to get it to the right temperature as quickly as possible.

I suspect this is what most automakers think the real solution should be, just make it easy enough to set a temp and leave the rest to the computer.