Scott Schluer wrote:
What a thrill! The plane felt more stable, controls felt "tighter", that

I agree, the controls on the new aircraft do not have the "slop" (free
play) that the older aircraft do.

extra 20 horsepower adds a nice kick on takeoff and I was impressed with the
avionics stack (GPS, MFD, dual-axis auto-pilot, etc).

You can download all the avionics operating manuals from the Bendix King
website. If you are going to fly the aircraft, learn to use the
avionics, expecially the KNS-94 GPS. The KS-155A NavComs also have some
interesting features that you will learn about in the manuals.

The only "negative" thing I noticed was that I felt like my visibility
underneath the left wing was obstructed more than it was in the older 172s.
Maybe my seat just needed vertical adjustment but I felt comfortable with my
position in relation to the instrument panel and forward visibility was
good. When I looked out the left window on downwind though, I found that
sometimes I had to lower my head just to be able to see the runway off the
wing. I'm sure there's no fundamental design change responsible for that,
but it was still something I noticed nonetheless.

Lower the seat.