Just installed 9 beta and now im even more happy :-D
the speechrecognition is not waiting for initialisation anymore and i fiddled a bit with settings on the voice part in my android. it seems to work good with any speechvoice for the output of spoken voice. speaking to the device works the best if one sets it to english US language and the voice to English(Generic).
at first start of the VR from the dashboard widget it doesnt seem to respond right all the time, but when i turn my screen from landscape to normal it resets the VR and then it works ok. i get confused sometimes whether if i can start speaking the command or not. sometimes i start talking and the VR tells me its ready and sometimes it just tell me it could understand : "im sorry bladiebla" (kinda annoying to hear it 10 times if command not recognised , make this something like : request failed or maybe even user-settable (i like to make it : Boss, i failed !)
i understand your view on the gps thing..maybe its the better way but the tasker prog dont even run on my dell streak

its not a big deal though . primary goal is usablity.
well maybe it is not perfect yet but you getting close