AIS target names, maybe not the first thing to declutter

I realize this post may fall under the realm of feedback, perhaps to pass on to Japan, rather than a question.

I've noticed v7 seems to make the choice to de-clutter the chart by removing AIS target names once zoomed out to pretty low/moderate levels (~1NM inland/coastwise in my experience).

Decluttering the chart is certainly a worthy goal, but this UI choice about hiding AIS target names feels peculiar, since the ability to quickly hail a target by name at a glance is a fairly primary information need and action to take for a watch officer -- more important than a lot of other information shown on the chartplotter. Sure, you can tap the target to get the name, but that adds a step to get important information instead of it being glancable for a common action at the helm. I also know that installations with Furuno radios can have direct tap-to-DSC, but voice hailing on 13 or 16 is still the norm in most cases, at least in waters I ply, and making the name easy and glaneable feels like a reasonably high priority helm task to support.

As a side-note, I've observed that the ARPA target numbers seem to stick around at all zooms, despite being just arbitrary 1-100 sequence numbers. If it's a choice, I'd certainly trade these sequence numbers for the actual AIS target names displayed more consistently across zooms. This utility-disparity is particularly noticeable when you have an ARPA target tracking an AIS vessel and can't see her name but can readily see the ARPA sequence number at all zoom level.
 
Puget Sound Boater,

Thank you for you inquiry. We will pass along your experience and knowledge to the product development department concerning your operation experience with version 7 software.

Thank you for your inquiry and providing valuable feedback.

Kind Regards,

C-Bass
 
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