Re-engineering the F125, a philosophical discussion

[HPsauce]

So, we all know the F125 is a bag of worms, an electromechanical unit, totally critical to the vehicle working, placed in the most ridiculous location on the underside of the vehicle and responsible for may A8's being scrapped in the past with apparent "gearbox failure".

My brain has been saying for some time "There must be a better way", but what?
I "think" I (definitely) know how it works and (mostly) what it does, but I'm not really sure why it's exactly where it is?
Most of it seems to be signalling (to various places) what the gear shifter (in the cabin) is doing. But I don't know enough of the mechanical and electrical links from that to understand why the F125 is where it is and whether it (or parts of it) could be elsewhere or implemented differently.

I can see there's potentially a difference between what the shifter is set to (requiring) and what is ACTUALLY going on in the gearbox, but does it all need signalling from the side of the gearbox? How much is mechanical and how much controlled via ECU?

e.g. I assume there is a certain amount of mechanical linkage from the gear shifter to the shaft on the gearbox to enable/command specific functions, is this just P (R?) (N?) and D and do the ECUs know what's going on independently of the F125 or not?

Anyone interested in discussing this or am I on my own? It just seems to me that the F125 incorporates a lot of functions that just don't need to be there.