Feature request: configurable \times/\cdot and a bit about %h

Dear developers,

I have just noticed the nice enhancement in gnuplot, defaulting to a
proper exponential form for numbers. However I have a tiny request.

I always use \cdot instead of \times. Would it be possible to make
this configurable?

This is the line in src/util.c that prints the character:
    strcpy(&tmp2[j], "\\times");

The other "problem" I have if I would use this handy shortcut is that
it annoys me to have the y axis labelled "1", "1.5", "2", "2.5", ...
Thus I always use something like
    set format y "%.1f"

I tried if I could use the same notation, "%.1h", but this only leads
to the undesired removal of dollar signs around the numbers (without
the desired effect), so I get:
    2\times10^{43}
Is this removal of dollar signs intended?

I would really love to have a setting to turn on the functionality
that would automatically calculate the number of needed decimal places
and keep it constant on the whole axis. And possibly a similar setting
that would also stick with 1.0\times10^{0} to keep the numbers nicely
right-aligned when requested.

But if %h is available it would be really nice if it would at least
allow the explicit "%.<number>h".

Thank you,
    Mojca