Great review - thanks! We swung by AoA and Pop one day during our recent vacation to WDW, and thought the Cars section looked ADORABLE. The theming was so cute, with all the cars, and the way the buildings were painted. I was really impressed.
We ate lunch at AoA, however, and we were less than impressed. As you noted, it is slow slow SLOW. My DD ordered pasta with a marinara sauce and shrimp. It was a HUGE serving and really good (I tasted the sauce and thought it had a great homemade flavor) but when she ordered it, there were four people standing around in the prep area watching one person cook it, and it just seemed to take forever to get anything from that station. There were people waiting for their pasta orders, overflowing into the pizza ordering area, and from all the people behind the counter standing there, no one was attending to the pizza orders. It was pretty unorganized. Also the cashiers lines moved very slowly.
The dessert choices were VERY good, and I was impressed they had Babycakes gluten-free cupcakes!