I would play with Alternative Interact mode, since it's a toggle-grab thing, but numeric keys don't work, only the scroll wheel does. i like precision, I dont like having to use my wheel to do quick things slowly.
I think this was done so that you can use the hotbar while hovering over objects, cause I have pretty frequently seen that complaint. I also would not really recommend using Alternative Interact until the next update, as some aspects of it seem to be broken currently.
ATV handling upgrade in the future? Currently controls like a blimp lol.
I'm pretty sure 0.9 will have an ATV rework, which should hopefully make it a bit easier to control.