Currently, execution of either the "change fire mode" and the "next throwable item" controls does two things:

1. Immediately changes the selected fire mode/throwable item.
2. If the weapon HUD was down it brings it up.

That means that if the HUD is currently down, it is not possible to check your currently selected fire mode/throwable item without changing them, and that, most often than not, forcing the player to cycle through multiple options just to do a whole loop to have their desired weapon mode/throwable item selected. In all cases, it is highly annoying, in critical situations, it is deadly.

It may be arguable that as far as the weapon fire mode is concerned, one can see the weapon's fire mode selector lever by looking down at the weapon. However, the following reasons make this alternative not a viable option:

1. It's not possible at all during the night for all weapons.
2. It's not possible at the Katiba or the Mk20 rifles series since the lever is located too far at the back, and is viewable only in a very serious twist of the head.
3. It's not possible at all in weapons that are equipped with an under-barrel grenade launcher since the UGL is controlled by a different mechanism, and when the UGL is selected, it's not reflected by the lever.

The current design is extremely bad when grenades and other throwable items are concerned, especially when you carry multiple items - HE grenades, mini-grenades, smoke grenades (each for every colour), chemlights (each for every colour) and IR grenades. It's not possible to check what grenade you have selected without changing it, and there's no workaround.

Players have their desired item/weapon mode selected most of the times. It's not logical to switch those every time we just want to confirm we have the correct one selected. This leads to multiple execution of controls, draws the attention of the player away from where it needs to be, and forces the player to cycle through lists when he needs his frag grenades or his automatic fire mode most. For example - a responsible player will never throw a smoke grenade near friendlies before confirming that he doesn't have his frag grenades selected, so every single time he wants to throw a smoke grenade he has to cycle through at least part of his throwable items inventory, if not through all of it when smoke is already selected.
Ask any player, even if they don't notice it, this design leads them to limit their throwable items just so they won't have to spend time and attention on cycling through all that they carry when they need to act quickly. This is bad usability, and bad playing experience.

In real life you can feel your weapon lever or the grenade you hold at all times without looking at them. Since this is not possible in the game, a visual aid is a necessity. This visual aid exists in the form of a HUD, but since the HUD fades after a while, the first "selection" control must bring the HUD first to allow the player to see the current selection before actually changing it. Of course, we don't want a permanent HUD!

The correct behavior was implemented in Arma 2, but it was changed for the worse in Arma 3. Please bring back the correct behavior.