Have you checked your assists again after the update? Make sure they’re all set to Hard/True to Life.
Then check your flight model again, make sure it’s still on Modern.
Then check on the new setting introduced in the update, which is the General Options → Accessibility → Cockpit Interactions. The new update sets this to Lock. If you want to go back to the old way of doing it, change this to Legacy.
I haven’t noticed any change to the knob direction after I changed the cockpit interaction to Legacy. I scroll down to decrease, I scroll up to increase. This is how it’s always been for me.
Well, how else were you to engage the parking brake without pressing a key or button that was bound to the parking brake?