In relation to the RX-8, the RX-Evolv was talked about and seen many years before actually came out.
Of course, and it was thought to be the new RX-7 as well. There are numerous projects going on at Mazda that point very strongly at the development of a new RX-7.
I know about the 13B's potential, but the reliability issues are discouraging me from getting involved with an FD. :? Also, that stupid 90 degree bend in the exhaust manifold looks like a terrible design flaw and outright pisses me off. Do you think supercharging the only way to go for the renesis? Was is only designed to run in its naturally aspirated fomat?
The reliability issues come from people not knowing WTF they are doing when tuning. Besides, you try and get a 1.3L piston engine to make 600HP reliably. For every single person who knows what they are doing with the 13B, there are 10 more who don't. If they rotary was so unreliable and horrible, they wouldn't be so popular in Japan(the FD sold up untill 2002). Also, the Naturally aspirated rotary engines are far more reliable than a piston engine. Many NA rotary racing teams rebuild thier engines once a season, instead of once a race.
I don't see why you could care about a bend in the exhaust, why wouldn't you replace it anyway? Exhaust gains huge power with rotaries, a buddy of mine gaind a full 65HP from a full 3" HKS with cast manifold and proper tuning.
The renesis was indeed built for NA, it was also given the engine of the year award when it came out. The reason that supercharging is better than turbocharging for the 8(in a few tuner's opinions and mine) is the exhaust port design. It's been changed from peripheral to side port, like the intake ports. The P-port exhaust allows us to spin very large turbos quite fast with our little 13BTs. A turbo that wouldn't be out of place under the hood of a supra or skyline does great with our comparativly tiny engines. With the side port design it saves on emissions and mileage, but doesn't flow as well as the older design. You could indeed P-port the exhaust, but that's a pretty big modification. There are a few other differences besides this, but that's a big one.
From the outside, the rotary can seem kinda scary, but once you realize it's stacked like legos and has like 3 moving parts it's a little less daunting. There are communities all over with people offering different tuning philosophies, from reliability to all out power. Down in AU they have some CRAZY rotary powered cars. It's just a different scene than the honda/nissan stuff, so you just gotta look in different places.