I don't miss noisy potentiometers :D

And having a bus with user operations being streamed to it means that designers can choose mappings and behaviors late.

The issue is the delay. I have a lot of amplifiers with knobs that are perceptually instant, even if they really are encoders behind the scene. Stuff is fast enough now that there's no reason for delay. I've built control systems that use encoders that operate at 1000Hz over slower embedded networks than are in modern cars.

Figure maybe 65dB of useful dynamic range in a car + 10dB of range needed based on levels of the recording. That implies you want about 150 steps.

Go ahead and display a number between 1-30 if you want-- that's probably good for usability. I can find "13" and be close to what I typically want. Just, have the actual control surface move 5 steps per number so that I can fine tune.