its funny you should say about the leather on your mk4, cause on our old v5 the leather was awful and stretched ridiculously, but i've not found that on the mk5 (granted its only 2 years old compared to the v5 which was 4 years old). i personally think leather is a massive selling point but hey that's just me! once you have leather you can't go back to a cloth finish.
Looks like the GTI is faster than the ST anyway!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-n_nKbRI8Y
This video has been removed by the user.
it was good, the so called faster st got beaten by at least half a car lengh (hey, a win's a win!!)