Fair point. When I take a passenger in a Waymo and it is there first time I'm hyper aware of the driving. But for myself personally, I'm mostly tuned out. For me it started to feel "normal" as early as about the 4th ride. So they could probably subtly adjust the "middle ground" based on the passenger's experience and feedback (As long as it doesn't create inconsistencies for surrounding vehicles).

People have an interesting “trust curve” regarding automation. At first they’ll be very suspicious and critical of it and any issues they have will be blamed on it. Then some point later when they’re used to the system, this attitude will suddenly flip around and they’ll start regarding the system as infallible. Sounds like this might be happening here.

You should be able to set the "aggressive" level. I believe Tesla has this option internally on their FSD Beta. Hopefully you will be able to set this level for robot taxis and personal vehicles like you can with (some) human drivers.

Call me cynical, but this feels like a way for tech companies to absolve themselves of responsibility.

“Your Honor, the pedestrian would have never been struck if the driver had set the system in its most conservative mode as we suggest on page 1,047 of Terms and Conditions.” /s

The thing is, the capabilities are not likely to be a strict superset of a human's.

So, if you make it have the same aggressiveness on "average" by having it take advantage of its superior capabilities, those situations are going to feel sketchy to a person.