In my case I can tell you that I have not experienced the sudden downshift in quite some time. In fact I cant even remember the last time it happened. So hopefully in your case it will slow down and then stop happening completely. All in all I'm very pleased with the car.

 

Update....

So I've had the car now for about 3 weeks and it's definitely better. It rarely has the "jolt" when coming to a stop and when it does, it's not as prominent. The car has definitely grown on me and I enjoy driving it a lot more now than I did before!

 

1 month and 1500 miles later, the car definitely smoothed out. There was never any violent down-shift but the up-shift is less noticeable. Either that or I've gotten use to it. There's still the occasional throttle lag, very annoying - not expecting that from Audi. I don't know if this is the case with others, it seems I really have to mash the pedal to get some juice out of the A4...

 

^ Although this turbo spools quite briskly, there's still some lag. Impossible to obviate completely given the innate design and exhaust flow mechanics of all turbo's. The upside is good fuel economy when not in boost, also enhanced by the intercooler's provided denser air.

The S4's supercharged V6 is the way to go if you want more linear performance.

Back on topic, at 3k miles now my transmission has also smoothed out considerably. Sport mode responds as I would expect it to. When I go in for my 5k maintenance I'm still going to check for the latter January TCM software upgrade, as mine was a January build.

"It's a learning computer." -Terminator

 

Turbo lag is barely noticeable, I'm okay with that.
I was referring to what -theoven- was talking about - according to the technician "sometimes the transmission is trying to figure out which gear it should be in and that sometimes provides some hesitation." It doesn't happen that often and it's usually at lower speeds. I guess I'll just have to suck it up in the name of better mpg...

 

I've noticed some of that myself in normal mode and would also surmise it's the TCM attempting to optimize. Sport mode does better (fewer gear changes) and is my preferred mode when I know I'm going to need more hesitation-free performance.

 

The best thing I have done to address the low speed transmission shifting is to move my seat forward a couple of inches. Generally I sit way back and the light pressure on the pedal seems to confuse the trans some. After I moved forward the seat about 2" closer than I would normally sit, I found that the full weight of my foot made the car more responsive and had less shifting up issues. Seems kind of obvious but this way I am not stepping hard, just unconsciously applying more pressure. Try it, you'll like it. BTW, my car has about 13k miles now and it is night and day from the first 6k or so regarding the shifting.

 

ok, so I have 11k miles on the car now and I still hate the transmission and throttle. oh everyone tells me how good looking that car is, and I agree, but driving it every day still annoys the crap out of me. I am looking into getting something to help with the throttle lag... not sure what to go with yet.

On the plus side, I just took it on an 1,100 mile trip and I got 36.7 mpg.

 

We just bought our first Audi, and I'm SO impressed. We only have about 500 mile on it, but I really haven't noticed any hesitation. I drive it like I did my Volvo back in the 90's and just take my foot off the gas to "signal" it to shift. I haven't played with the paddle shifters yet, except one time inadvertently.

 

I purchased a CPO 2011 A5 in March of 2014. At first I noticed a hard shift into 1st gear from a stop. Took it to the dealer and they upgraded the software. This seemed to resolve that problem. A few months later I noticed that once the car had warmed up that a shift into reverse from a stop was hard. Like it was slamming into gear. I took it to the dealer again and they performed an adaption drive which seemed to fix the issue. Three months later the issue reappeared, but much more apparent. Back to the dealer. The service manager wanted the head tech to take a test drive with me to show him my concerns. He got in the car, put on his seat belt and was ready. I started the car, put it into reverse and boom. It shook the car so hard we were done. He said,"Thats not a software issue." After they had the car for two weeks they replaced the mecatronics unit and the issue, I thought, was resolved. For the last two weeks the issue has returned.
Am I the only one who has experienced this? Love the car, but come on man! How many times do I have to keep taking the car back to the dealer for Audi not to replace the transmission. Buy the way the car had 42k when I bought it and now has 47k.