I just finished a 2 day rental of a Golf with the 2.5, automatic. I was inclined to call it "old and clunky" myself but I found myself really enjoying the car. The engine was very smooth, much smoother than a TDI. It produces usable torque, unlike say a Honda engine that really needs to be wrung out to produce any kind of thrust. It had just a hint of a nice exhaust note, and I found it reasonably quick for a daily driver.
On the fuel economy side, we had snow in the last couple of days, the car was on snow tires. and in steady-state autoroute driving I was getting about 6.8 L/100 km. In more local driving, around 7.6. That isn't great but it isn't terrible either, about the same as I got with my B6 Passat 2.0T, but with the advantage of burning RUG.
So while not state-of-the-art, for someone who drives about 20k km per year or less, it's plenty adequate.
Of course I'd like to see a more efficient gasser. I was just reading about the new 3-series with the turbocharged 240 hp 4-cyl that we're about to get and it's rated 5.6 L/100 km highway with manual, 5.3 with 8-speed automatic, and it produces 260 lb-ft of torque with peak at a ridiculously low 1250 rpm. It actually equals or betters the consumption of the 335D.
Engines like that are probably going to make diesels more than pointless in the very near future. Given VW's propensity for blowing HPFPs, and all the Rube Goldberg emission control appliances on our TDIs, that's probably not a bad thing.
