Hi,
I don't know how the US version of the Prius II is being rolled out, but here in the UK the rear seat armrest doesn't stop at the horizontal, it carries on until it "rests" on the rear seat itself.
This means it angled downwards and is totally useless as an armrest because you can't comfortably rest your arm on it.
I brought this feature to the attention of Toyota Customer Services and pointed out that page 27 of the current UK Prius brochure shows a rear seat with the armrest in a perfectly horizontal position.
Of course no-one else has reported this feature, but they'll pass my feedback to the design people, but because all the cars are coming out of manufacturing in this state they can't [afford to] do anything about it.
There's probably some small print somewhere that states that the pictures don't show what you'll actually get.
All this is a shame because I really love my Prius, but the gloss is taken off it a little bit by poor design of the rear armrest and also of the front central armrest/storage box (Have you tried driving safely while your front seat passenger opens this box to retrieve something? - it's OK until you need to turn the wheel).
Sorry to be such a whinge - I just needed to get this out of my system.
I feel better now, and my in-laws (both in their 70's) will have to rest their arms on each other in future!