I'm trying to avoid crossing the VTEC barrier too many times until break-in is complete (1,000 miles according to the owner's manual), but here are seven random thoughts so far after 150 miles:
(1) The speedometer is genius, once you get past how unusual it is. It just works brilliantly. Speedos mounted like this should be in the majority of cars. People need to get past their preconceptions of what a speedometer should look like, and where it should be located, and give this a shot. It just works brilliantly.
(2) It's really got this engaging, communicative, confident feel that just makes any sort of curve, even in town, even at 30 miles per hour, fun. You don't have to be going 80 mph for this car to make you feel like an engaged driver. That's the advantage of a handling-and-feedback-oriented sporty car over a speed-oriented sporty car, I guess.
(3) People who don't know cars think it's just a Civic. Total Q-car appeal. Most of my coworkers think I just made a fiscally conservative, utilitarian purchase of a transportation appliance.
(4) The shift knob isn't the most comfortable. It looks good, but the unpadded aluminum isn't shaped right for people who are used to putting their hand on top of the shifter instead of on the side. I'm debating putting some sort of spherical shift knob on it, though not the massively-overpriced Mugen aluminum sphere. But I'll probably just see if I get used to it in a few weeks. I do like how it looks.
(5) Speaking of shifters, this remains the best-shifting manual I've ever experienced. Just. Sublime.
(6) It's exceptionally roomy for a "compact sedan," both for passengers and for cargo. The snub-nosed, cab-forward design frees up a ton of interior space relative to the exterior dimensions, and since you sit so low, there's a ton of headroom. In the trunk, the intruding sickle-type hinges are counterbalanced by the MASSIVE trunk opening, that makes it much easier to load a big bulky fencing bag (or a corpse) into the trunk than on my strut-equipped Jetta.
(7) As a corollary to #6, there's a TON of glass around you. You sit low in the car, so the steeply-raked windshield almost turns into a glass roof above you, followed shortly by the sunroof. Combined with the relatively low, horizontal beltline, it really does have a proper "greenhouse" in a decade dominated by gun-slit windows. Very nice (and very safe if you have kids who might be running around as you try to back up). And the spoiler sits low enough so that it doesn't impede rearward vision in anyway (unlike the Lancer GTS).