I loved my R32 and like you, missed it when it went. As an all-weather car, I thought it was very good!
Having said that, I don't miss the fuel bills or it's weight. Although I had a lot of fun in it, it was a heavy old girl. I also couldn't get my head around the power. It's a 3.2 litre V6 but only produced 247bhp standard. What I found frustrating was that tuning it was expensive and didn't yield the sorts of gains you would get from remapping a GTI.
For this reason, I think you'll enjoy your GTI a lot more! I always felt that my R32 did a lot of things very well but nothing exceptionally and for this reason, if I was buying a VW again, it would be the GTI and not the R32.