cos its rubber duh
No, that's utter balls.
Have you had hold of these little suckers? Compared them side by side vs the polybushes?
What's the compound? 'Rubber' ain't rubber these days. It's a compound. The hardness of the compound is controlled massively by the formulation and density. These are OEM spec parts from a 'sports car' or an ultra-high performance hatch.
If the TT bushes were designed to fit the TT and the S3 they've been designed to be worked exceedingly hard. I suspect the 'design' in a lot of polybushes is 'how can we make it not too hard to fit in?' They figure a shape out, then take the poly material out of the freezer and machine it down appropriately, before shoving it in the hole and seeing how it works. If it's not quite right then they probably have another few goes.
I rather suspect there's a *touch* more R&D in the TT bushes I've just pressed into my control arms than the R&D that went into the polybushes.
Consider how the bushes are constructed? Metal outer (so less bushing material). This is then bonded to the bushing material, which is then bonded to the inner shaft. The whole thing's tighter than a nun's chuff. Compare this to the poly unit, which has no outer metal surface to bond the bushing material to and then has a metal insert that can be just pushed in by hand.
Believe me they were a LOT stiffer than I remember the polybushes being when they went in. I don't think £27 for the pair of them was all spent on scene whoreage points.