I shall be interested to see the new "MPV" version when it comes out, but it looks as though it still won't have a bunch of room in the back.

From long-term experience:

Fuel: On the money there. The weird bit is when you find that it's milage around town ain't far off what you get on the motorway.

Space: There's quite a bit more storage under the boot floor. In the words of Michael Caine; "Not a lot of people know that.". Presumably "tiny" means "in comparison to the Mondeo" :-) It'll take a weeks shopping, luggage for a family of five (i.e. mine) or (with the seats folded flat) a washing machine and a load of other crud on a dump run. You want to see what "tiny" looks like? Hire a Focus next time. Also here, more bins, cubbies, pockets 'n such than you can physically shake a stick at.

Gadgets: I agree about the cruise control. Not only on a stalk, but one that moves with the wheel at that. Very clever, I am sure. My personal favourite is the GM three-buttons-on-end-of-indicator-stalk setup. Each to his own. I'd add that the bluetooth and phonebook setup is the world's most useless POS[1] and that it's very obvious that the various functions (phone, satnav, stereo etc.) are all seperate bits hastily stuck together. The integration sucks. Biggest joke here is the Voice Control system. "This function is not available on this screen"? Well if you know that, why don't you switch to the place it is valid you useless pile of cr**? This is not helped by the fact that its understanding of what I just said[2] is rather worse than that of my late, deaf Grandmother. Reversing camera is excellent, autopark is a worthless gimmick but you have to have the latter to get the former.

Driving: You get used to it. The "always first off the lights" bit due to the honking levels of torque from nothing is amusing, even if whatever it is that you just embarassed invariably hurtles past 5 seconds later. I wouldn't describe acceleration as tortuous, that's probably an impression caused by the fact it revs its cobs off, but that's an effect of it using its engine at the most efficient revs for the desired power delivery. Once you get used to the fact that it's not doing any harm making that disconcerting "about to explode" noise and learn to ignore it, it's OK. The only really bad bit is the traction control, which works by dumping the breakers on the inverter, producing an effect almost indistinguishable from a Total Failure Of Everything. Handling is everything you'd expect of a vehicle that appears to have reused that godawful asymmetric wishbone front suspension assembly off a Skoda Favorit.

[1] Dear Toyota. Go out and buy a Parrot bluetooth unit. That's how it should work, OK?

[2] Dear Toyota. An antiquated WinMo phone running Microsoft's 25 quid Voice Command package does an infinitely better job. If you paid more than 50p for your version, please fire the idiot that bought it.