Just curious......how do you turn off the MDS??
Firstly, I've a 19' with the HEMI and 8spd ZF trans and love it (my first truck ever in 23 to 25 vehicles in my 33+ year driving career) - I'll never, ever go back a a car, it just won't happen!
The factory Uconnect radio is a known PITA, but who cares. It if becomes and issue you no longer wish to deal with, just toss in something like a Kenwood double-din with the CanBus interface and you're good to go, and still maintain all the factory touch-screen goodies, and then some.
The stock cast iron exhaust manifolds are a real choke point in these engines, and when yours crack and/or leak from broken bolts, toss in a set of shorty JBA headers, or go long tube headers. Either way, not a real big issue. You also then net real torque gains and better flow of your HEMI.
On your steering wheel you may have a couple of buttons that say -Gear and +Gear. When you're in drive, press the -Gear button once and you'll see the number 1 on your center cluster. Then repeatedly press the +Gear button until it goes to 8. If you press too many times, who cares, do it again and when in 8, head out.
This allow the transmission to shift up and down through all 8 gears as it sees fit to. All the while eliminating the MDS mode. 8-cylinders all the time is a happy HEMI and transmission!
Be aware though, every time you shift out of Drive, you'll have to do this, but it becomes second nature to do this sequence after a while. I've got almost 120,000Km's on my baby, and maybe a couple to few thousand KM's were using that awful system right after I bought her. Then I got educated, especially after feeling the effects of the MDS ruining my personal driving experiences.
As many have said, MDS does zero to benefit ones ownership experiences. And as I know many have attested to, it actually impedes performance and stresses the vehicle, per se. When in MDS one can experience a shudder like feeling as the transmission is shifting up and down. The kickdown, especially when on the highway also lags if in MDS when you go to step on it and let your HEMI open up.
And quite frankly, there is pretty much zero fuel economy gain whatsoever with it activated. It's fluff and BS, in my opinion.
The majority consensus is to keep it off, and pretend like it doesn't exist