Jack,
well said and I couldn't agree with you more. Unfortunately, most manufacturers have already taken advantage of the complexity of the software to severely restrict the owner's ability to monitor and understand what is going on in his/her car. German manufacturers, especially BMW, are notorious for this, but the Japanese ones are not far behind.
Speaking for myself, for over ten years now the availability of is one of the reasons, if not the primary one, that I continue to buy VW-group vehicles, but even has restrictions imposed by the manufacturer, as you point out. Perhaps the silver lining in this whole debacle might be a legal mandate to open up the software architecture to the owners and independent repair shops. Ironic, isn't it, that the same Herr Dr. Prof. Ing. Winterkorn that is now demanding our confidence was the first not to trust us to have the expertise to understand what is going on with our cars' subsystems.
Stefano