Forward for reverse mimicks a traditional auto where when manoeuvring people are used to push the selector forward for reverse and back again to go forward.

Basically it goes back to the historic PRND order. Even cars which dumped the traditional selector years ago (e.g. Jaguar Land Rover) have stil used the traditional order.

Might there have been any evolution from the aero joystick conventions ?

One thing to keep in mind that EVs don't have gearboxes. This is because motors have constant torque at any RPM, unlike ICE where torque varies with RPM, hence a gearbox is required to multiple torque at low RPM.

Driving EV is not different than operating any motor - like washing machine, fan etc.

You press on and then regulate the RPM only.

Question: how do the reverse gears work in EVs? Do they just rotate the motor in other direction, in which you can have top speed in reverse too!

Or motor always rotates in one direction and an idler gear is used to implement reverse gear with limited speed?

There wasn't on Daf's .(I had two - I think in Holland they had races where all the cars drove in reverse, or is that an urban legend?)

Reverse racing involving all makes was definitely a thing in The Netherlands, but because they had an unfair advantage in how fast they could go backwards, DAFs were raced separately!.