Facelift S-Tronic Handbrake whilst stopped in Drive

Yes, the car is primed and ready to move and is holding against the handbrake. Not excessively though. I notice it on mine but after a split second it settles and doesn't "pull" against the handbrake.

For many years I have been testing my 8P with the handbrake and a sleeping policeman. For the handbrake I always found that the car would get into a gentle rocking motion when it was forced to stay stopped when in drive. I drive up to a sleeping policeman and let the wheels just touch and stop. Then let go of the brakes and see what happens. You want the car to fail to overcome the obstacle. In my case the car always climbs the slope once, falls back to the ground and then applies a light force against the sleeping policeman.

All that changed when a longstanding fault was repaired. Now with the handbrake, the car applies a constant and relentless force. With the sleeping policeman the car now climbs the slope and stays wherever it gets to.

If you use the sleeping policeman you can fine tune things and test for small changes. First, find an obstacle that the car will drive over. Next you apply enough lock on the steering wheel so that the car will not go over the obstacle (sleeping policeman). The amount of lock is your measure. If a change occurs in the future you can do the test again and see how much lock you need to add or subtract to match your original attempt.

I know it sounds odd, but it does work. This silly system spotted a fault long (years) before the fault was picked up by a check engine light or something in VCDS.

That doesn't seem right.
If I come to a stop and apply the handbrake leaving the car in D, S or manual, the car just sits there at idle with no load on the clutch.