Two telephone related rants

Two phone related rants: a.) Can't dial and listen. b.)Phone times out too soon.

a.) Most phones now, cell and standard have the dialpad in the body of the phone, not like the old days when you could look at the dial and listen too. This would be fine, except the phone company and corporate automated phone systems (eg. . . hit 1 for sales, 2 for customer service, etc.) still think you can do both.
So I hit 2 for customer service, for example, and not being a magician, I take the phone from my ear to do this. By the time I get it back to my ear, the message has already started on instructions for the next level, so I have to wait for the next cycle to repeat.
Or you have to enter your 10 digit id, and a digit doesn't register, but of course you don't know this until you have put the whole thing in there. Then when you finish the whole thing, you realize that if you could have listened, you would have known sooner.

b.) But the most sinister thing that has changed on the phone systems, and I swear I am right on this, is that they don't give you as much time - or enough time between digits. I first realized this when Martha's mother started slowing down a few years ago, and she couldn't dial any number out of town because it started beeping if she delayed more than a couple of micro-seconds between digits.

Even today I get so mad when I am looking up a number, and key in the area code, glance down to my listing and find the rest of the number, and before I get my attention back, it has timed out. Bah Bah bah bah The phone nazi has said "No dialing for you! Too slow!" Not an earth shaking problem, but makes phones harder to use and I know they were not this way years ago. And who is responsible for this? Ma Bell? ATT? it is a nationwide thing, it looks like, so there is nobody to complain to, nobody who would care.