Oh :/
Looks like I wouldn't have one at all then, still looks lovely though
Have you driven a modern "sporty" auto? I too was a manual only sort of person, but my experience with the auto in my 5 series has shown just how good automatic boxes can be. I would only have had the R estate with the DSG box myself. Even if only for how well it works with the adaptive cruise that is also standard.
OP>
Something I'm a bit confused about. You mentioned that the key reason for choosing the Golf over most of the other cars mentioned at the start, was because of having a bigger boot. If that was such a priority, which not buy an Octavia, or even bigger estate or MPV?
To be honest, everything else is more of a compromise.
The boot in the Golf estate looks huge. I'm sure it is easily the equal of the Octavia, but probably close to the Superb too. I'm not convinced it'll be quite as big as that in my F11 5 series, or an E-Class, but I doubt there would be much in it. The E-Class estate is pretty much the biggest boot you can get while remaining an actual car. Beyond that you're looking at MPV's and SUV's, and they are BIG money if you want any resemblance of performance, both to buy and to run.
But none of them have 4wd (SUV's aside). And none of them have a 300 BHP 4 pot that'll be capable of 40+ mpg "on a run".
The Golf R estate looks to me at least, to be the best compromise between practicality, performance and economy. And I always though that my 530d was pretty close to being the best at all of that. Although I'm sure, on average, my 530d has a good 5 mpg on the R estate, the R beats it on performance.