My brother has a nicely optioned 3 GT hatch with the 2.5 6spd combination. I drove it for a week or so and was VERY impressed. I didn't want to give it back.
Fun enough to drive, comfortable, deceptively large hatch (I was in the process of moving at the time), just did everything really well. He has a long highway commute (he has owned it for about a year, and is coming up on 30k miles) and gets well over 30mpg.
However....
Paired with the slick-shifting sex-speed [...] —it rewards you with a payoff.
... it did lack this feature