The story regarding the wing sweep lever for the F-111, in that it was originally designed with the function of lever forward-wings sweep forward, lever back-wings sweep back, perfect one to one mapping, engineers logical solution. However pilots perception is lever forward=go faster, lever back=go slower, along with the other controls in the cockpit that meant something went faster if you pushed it forward and vice versa. So as the pilot wanted to slow down for landing, the wing sweep lever was moved aft and the wings swept back, which was obviously not very nice. The wing sweep lever was subsequently re-designed to stop any potential confusion for the pilots.
Nigd3 - The F-111 wing sweep lever was not such a brain stretch and was never redesigned. It remains as ever, wing sweep lever aft = wings aft. The relationship between the F-111 park brake handle and the hook handle, now that's another story.