Let's be fair, the Golf VW used was a development car that later went on to become the CS-S.
You may recall that many of us were slightly disappointed that VW didn't go as far in their search for lightness as we had hoped, when the production variant appeared.
I am sure there are guidelines that manufacturers adhere to, otherwise it would just be a pointless exercise.
I'm not defending Honda, but ultimately competition should lead to the potential for a more focused performance variant.
Once again, the issue may be how few they actually build for customer consumption.
