I was always curious about VW but was always hesitant about pulling the trigger due to their shady past and the previous generation Golf's inferior rear suspension design. One test drive and tons of research later...and I was sold. I swapped in the European GTI springs and the handling is on par with my previous SVTF. Power is very close between the two cars as well (Rabbit has the low end edge, but the SVTF has a bit of an advantage on the top end power range). Not trying to sell you on the car...but I have been through three Foci before this latest car. This VW is everything I loved about my SVTF with none of the annoying quirks.

Have you checked out the Mazda 3 yet? My wife had an '04 Mazda 3 5-door automatic for about 50-something thousand miles. Great car with no reliability issues. Even with the auto transmission it was still fun to drive.