Well no I haven't driven the Noble nor the Mclaren for obvious reasons but I have driven the following cars with paddle shift: 360 Modena and Spider F430 coupe and Spider 430 Scuderia coupe and Spider (16M) Gallardo E-gear Gallardo Spyder E-gear 599 GTB 599 HGTE California Golf GTI DSG Alfa 159 selespeed I have driven a few miles on track especially in the 599 GTB and F430 (the cars they use on the Pilota Ferrari driving courses)Cars with 490 Hp and 620 hp concentrating on trying to brake right, turn right, find the apex, push the throttle at the right time with the right force, look ahead for the next turn and etc. etc. the last thing you miss is a clucth pedal and a stick to fiddle around with...Paddle >>> manual. Give it a try and you will know that I am right. In the 360 the shifting is a little too slow for my taste and the same goes for the Gallardo. The system has been upgraded now and should be good. My brother drove the Gallardo Balboni with e-gear recently and he cliams it works as god as in an F430 now. From my experience I would never consider a manual over a paddle shifter. It is outstanding for track driving and works really well on the street. It IS fun flipping the paddle a couple of times to change 2-3 gear down when you reach a tunnel! Or if you want to make a little bit of noise before a red light. (And you can even do that when you are on the phone!) This is so stupid: "People who use semi-auto 'boxes are no better than people driving full-auto slushboxes" - with an auto-box you have NO control. With a paddle shifter you have ALL the control you want!
Is the Golf DSG box the best out of these? I know that 1-2 is sometimes a little slow on the dsg for some reason.
The 430 Scuderia is the best gear box I have ever tried. It's lightning fast and very sporty. Pretty hard core actually but when you idle around in the city it's gentle and smooth. Genious. The California DCT is faster and smoother but I like the hardcore F1 box better. The DSG in the Golf is boring imo. It does the job well but I wish the gear shifts were more obvious, more present.