I remember seeing that Ferrari and Lamborghini had them where it was exposed and the shift gating was handled by a machined plate showing the shift pattern. I also remember some automatics that had (some still do) a pseudo pattern like that where one has to move the handle horizontally, I guess to make it feel somewhat like shifting a manual transmission. I know they looked cool, but I guess there might be an issue of accidentally dropping stuff in there. In my car, the only danger of that is with the parking brake handle, and a lot of newer cars have an electronic switch to set the parking brake.
