The hands-on-wheel alert is the steering wheel capacitive sensor and seems to be working. You shouldn’t be limited to the 3:00/9:00 positions, though. I sometimes hold the bottom of the steering wheel.
So I lied, and replying here in case this helps anyone else later. My steering wheel capacitive sensors seem to be working just fine everywhere. Turns out it just needs more than a finger or two to be detected. I guess I just have a light touch and the only place I was grabbing with enough surface area was 3/9 after I would get the warning with the icon with the lanes in those two spots.
However, I'm still waiting for this awareness to be fixed. It does seem like 6.3.4 fixed it for Kyle Conner based on a follow up tweet so that's good. Just waiting for that to get released publicly though. I'm still stuck on 3.6.0 anyway, even though 3.6.3 was pushed to me a week ago. After the failed update that day, they haven't pushed it again yet or even given me an explaination or timeline for this update despite me calling customer care for multiple updates since then :/
I just installed the 3.6.4 software update and took my GGT out for a spin. Everything, including Hands-Free Drive Assist, seems to be working like a champ…Everything is right in the world again!