Permanently hidden bottom & right panel: sorry guys, but not. Both panels are made for quick access to features. The simple logic is: if the panel contains something, display it, if not, hide it. Hide it permanently? Only in rare cases like @luxcalor wrote for example. Anyway, these rare cases may be solved by Presets, so use them. On the second side, accidental hiding of panels causes us only trouble (on the support web) and may confuse users.
I'm also not sure about automatic hiding of empty bottom panel ... have to think about it more. Because as @tapio correctly wrote ... empty panel (automatically hidden) won't appear by double click ... and confused user may only ask "why?".
"Small buttons in the bottom" > got it, thanks John. It is indeed incorrectly wrote shrinking of buttons in case of insufficient space.
@Andrew Heardit's correct. Map rotation works when GPS is on and the map is centered. I plan to improve the style of these two buttons, so will keep this issue in my mind, thanks. There is also a fact, that you may rotate map by two fingers, which little complicate life

.
GPS > major part of source code is shared between both versions (and will be), so all these technicals, like functions that take care about GPS, are identical.
Problem with "Show view": may you please just check settings > GPS & sensors > Orientation > Compatibility mode. If you change this, "Show view" still displays 180° difference? I just can't find any reason why this should not work on the south hemisphere :/.