I'm on the fence about this atm, it was a deal breaker to have this feature in my new car but having used it, I find it's a bit annoying. You constantly find yourself getting slowed down and down and down. The gap it wants is unrealistically large even on the smallest setting, I find myself overriding it with the pedal giving me a chance to get closer to the car in front and pull out before it slows to a crawl and you then can't pull out into faster traffic. I think in most scenarios I would prefer just regular cruise.
I know exactly what you mean, and you've hit one what I meant when I said it still takes a little getting used to. For instance, if you're approaching slower traffic and want to move out to the overtaking lane, but you're waiting for someone to pass you first - if you pull out behind them too quickly as they pass, even though they are going much faster and the gap between you is growing, the cruise control steps in and wants to slow you down, even though it could maintain speed with no issue. So you still have to be prepared to override with the throttle so you don't slow down the overtaking lane for too long while the cruise sorts itself out.
Similarly, I've had someone pull out in front of me quite closely, which causes the cruise to slow down rapidly, even though the car then zooms off ahead faster than I had the cruise set to.
Perhaps it would help if the adaptive cruise was not only able to judge the distance to the car in front, but also it's relative velocity, which would help in those situations. Maybe some more advanced system do this already. However, as long as you account for that, it's still far better than 'normal' cruise control in my opinion.
