Dave i think your whole argument about the interior is to convince yourself its ok to leave Audi for space reasons. I occasionally go and see the a3 and then go see the golf straight after and the difference in interior quality is quite large. The golfs plastics aren't up to the quality of the a3. Minor nuances just aren't finished as well and the whole feel is of lower quality.
that is of course not to say its a bad car and if more space was a must for me id gladly buy a golf. I'm just not sure why you continuously tell us the golf is on par with the a3 interior wise. Its not just opinion and perspective. Its fact that the a3 interior is of better quality.
In your opinion the A3 interior is better. In my opinion it's not better, but is different. It would also seem that 58 motoring journalists from 22 countries think the Golf is overall the better car which is why it won the European Car of the Year Award and the A3 did not make the last eight.
As I said before I have owned eight A3s I would love to have another one, but I'm not going to spend my own money and spend three years sitting in a car whose interior I dislike, good quality or not. A lot of the members on this forum, being a forum about the new 8v A3, obviously like it. The question I would ask is, as most of them are company car drivers, would they choose to buy a new A3 if they had to pay for it out of their own money.
It is also interesting the difference between the different Golf models. If all the models had the shiny black plastic used on the centre console of the GT model I would even consider the Golf. But to me the dark brushed stainless steel looks great and is no where near as 'silver' looking as many of the pictures seem to indicate. I have yet to see a new Octavia, but I doubt if the interior will the same quality as the A3 and Golf even though much of it basically the same as the Golf in design. All three will have exactly the same engine and gearbox produced in the same factory and all three offer the 2.0TDI engine and DSG which are important items in my consideration. As my current A3 is only just over a year old, I still have plenty of time to look at all the models before having to decide which one to spend my money on. I changed my previous A3 a little earlier than my normal three years to make sure I got another A3 that I knew I would like. One of the best decisions I have ever made.