I always felt that something like that ought to happen, but it never seemed to work for me. Probably finger trouble, so I did not use the system very often - just as easy to reach over.
On a slight thread creep, radios with a 0 - 9 keypad instead of turn knobs for entering the frequency, (such as those on the Dash 8 Q400) are brilliant. Very easy and super quick to select a new frequency.