Lol! you're right.  I had the wrong configuration in "system settings"!

I'm actually not a huge fan of the shape.

The handles don't curve out enough, and my hands are too large for all my fingers to fit around them.

I had this problem, too.  Not as noticeable now, though.  I had a chance to grip both the PS4 and Xbox One for a few minutes on Christmas morning and both felt fantastic.  After I got a PS4 and Tomb Raider, my hands felt funny after an hour of play.  Like they were going to cramp or something.  I'm used to it now but I never had that happen with anything else.  Really, that's my only complaint about the controller and since I'm used to it, it's not an issue.  Surprised none of the critics I saw had this happen, though.  They almost unanimously chose the Dual Shock 4 as the better controller.

I'll get some extended time with the Xbox One controller in a couple of days.

Well...
The Lightbar-it's ok, don't really pay much attention to it.
Touch pad-seems kind of unprecise even when I'm just using it as a map cursor in ac4.
Speaker-I do like this function for kz logs and resogun, so it's pretty coll.

Your post inspired me to try the headphone jack this morning.  Worked better than I expected!  I could hear all of the game's audio in high quality using just the controller (after going into system setting and enabling it).  Had no idea that was an option.  Thanks!

Mic - awesome, love it. Best new feature

Light bar- could care less.

Touchpad - useless. Most hated additional. It has moved the PlayStation button in between the analog sticks which is hard as fuck to press now. It's like trying to play Operation, getting around those sticks.

Love the speaker, really adds to atmosphere and can be helpful in games such as Dead Nation for weapon selects.

Touchpad is rarely used besides as a massive "select" button, but early days to see how it is used.

Light bar is fine, but never used it in any way yet.

I still have hopes for the touch pad. I mean there was a time when devs had absolutely no idea what to use the right stick for, too. Then one day, it clicked.

Nice. I've been using it because my 1080p monitor doesn't have speakers (plan to get some this weekend) and my other monitor is 1920x1200 so it stretches the image vertically. The stretching isn't bad, didn't cripple my experience with the PS3 but I prefer to just have a proper image.

I've never connected a console to a monitor but my PC has a few settings for different formats.  You'd probably have to letterbox it to get an accurate picture but if it doesn't bother you, sounds like you have a pretty good setup.  Oh, and your post is also the reason I didn't have headphones when I went to the gym this morning!  Left them in my PS4 controller.