I've just gone out for a ride with my new 1040, having used a 1030 for 5 years, may be more. One of my bugbears with the 1030 was that the sound was the same for a general notification, a time alert, and any other kind of alert, other than navigation prompts. This is annoying because it means you have to look at the unit every time the thing makes a sound.
The 1040 differentiates between fluid alerts and other timer alerts. "hurrah" I thought, when the hydration alert goes off, of course it will have a different tone/pitch/something. But no - the same tone as everything else.
The tones have been changed/enhanced for other tones (e.g. segment completion). It would such a simple thing to associated alerts with different pitches, or have a tone picker option list for an alert. You could then no what you were being alerted to without taking your eyes off the road and make a decision as to whether I need to look at the unit
Other than that gripe of a missed opportunity I think the 1040 is good development/evolution of the 10xx series.