I'm very interested in this review as there's a very high chance that my next ride will be a VW Golf R, which is basically the same as this S3 but in hatch form. I test drove a A3 earlier this year and actually didn't like the interior. It felt too minimal for my tastes and I much prefer the VW interiors we've sampled this summer. With the Golf R being cheaper, with hatch back, and manual I think it's the better value. All the reviews that I've read have indicated that the Golf R is a bit more performance oriented than the S3, which sways more to the comfort side of handling. In any case it sounds like a very good car indeed and nothing really disappointed me in this review (sure the steering input isn't great but which audi/vw is, and it's more FWD biased so what can you expect).