Regardless of how good it looks on the outside and how well it might drive, will still have the poor user interface and cost cutting on the inside.
Yes, two things here:
1) the standard Mk8 GTI by all accounts drives very well. Better than the Mk7 both in everyday mode and then more playful if you want to rip it up. By the sounds of it, even more so in the clubsport version. Nobody has said a Mk8 GTI is less than a great drive though, improving on the Mk7 in very real ways.
2) The functionally challenged, visually meh interior is still the same across the whole Mk8 range. Everyone at every oppurtunity dislikes it.
I could live with visually meh, functionally challenged? Not so much.
Just come back from the North Norfolk coast and lots of lovely twisting A roads with little traffic and it was a pretty satisfying few rides out and about up there and then home and though have little doubt to the really knowledgeable who have had real opportunity to test the MK 8 out it performs a little better in the ride department for me personally knowing that sitting in a MK 7 with the TCR styling and cabin makes me feel good all around in the drive and the package - for that marginal lift in ride that doubt I would notice in much of my driving, I will still have at back of my mind the struggle with the interior and overall styling which in turn taints the overall experience.
Presently like a pig in poke every time walk up to and get in the TCR and then drive, thats the 'feeling' we pay the ££ for and the MK 8 presently compromises on that, it would nag away quietly at you even if package is much better in the Clubsport and R guises.
I will wait on the MK 8.5 before making the full conclusion as there is so much scope to readily improve, especially in the exterior and front area where its really just some better designed plastic it needs. The interior is the concern as to rip out and make it more Touraeg like is major and not uplift so its likely the interior is for the MK 8 lifespan
