Odd, the new one got some good write ups for being dynamically decent. I even didn’t mind the previous gen, have had some good fun in them as rentals and it had dynamic decent enough to get into it, especially the manual one I got in NZ.
I think Toyota hides the handling by making them so vanilla in the way they feel. It is there in new ones, you just have to push to find it
Mind you, I like CVTs though... I just think they’re good engineering and I don’t get the hate.
I’d never buy one (or perhaps I might in the high output hybrid wagonwe don’t get here...).