I had the centre console off my NC1 today to fit a brass bush in the gear shifter and decided to do something about the bloomin’ daft drinks holder cover latch which reduces the storage space there to almost zero. This mod removes the latch and gives an extra 20mm of clearance - Not a lot, but it does increase storage options a bit and means I won’t get annoyed every time the cover gets jammed 'cos it’s fouling on what’s in there, usually hand sanitiser and USB lead.
I know there’s replacement consoles available for £100 or so but after just fitting coilovers I need a while for the '5 fund to recover.
I may be wrong but I think this is NC1 only - Doesn’t NC2 onwards have a more sensible arrangement?
So . . . Remove the console and the 8 screws that hold on the drinks holder assembly.
Slide the lid all the way back and pull back while holding down the 2 latches. The back of the slide grooves will slide back (with difficulty) and you can lift the lid from the assembly.
Pull the two arms apart and the latch will come free. Cut off the arms - I used wire cutters then a file.
Hacksaw across the latch itself to remove the textured part.
Turn the textured part over and glue into the cover to fill the hole left by latch removal.
There should be enough friction when reassembled to hold the cover shut but I thought I’d make a proper closure so I raided my magnet collection (what do you mean, you haven’t got a magnet collection!) and used one from an old spinny-disc HDD and a couple of 6mm diameter ones which I glued as shown. Make sure you get the polarities right if you do something similar.
Reassemble and enjoy your slightly more usable magnetic closure console storage 
BTW the brass bush in the shifter made a noticable difference. My gearstick had very little play but this firmed it up more and it feels more direct and . . . metallic is the only way I can describe it.