You make a good point, but I'm speaking from the perspective that Mazda is moving upmarket and selling "luxury/premium" cars in the future. No luxury brand sells a car with a torsion beam setup in the rear. It just doesn't make sense to me to move upmarket, then move backwards with their rear suspension choice by going back to torsion beam setups. Even the article that was linked regarding the torsion beam setup also mentioned that it is a step backward. Like I said I understand that they are going that route to improve on NVH, but I was hoping they could stay with a multi-link rear suspension setup and improve NVH.This is being reported for a car with a base price of $20,000. That is not luxury. If they offer a 3 with a nice interior, a perky engine, 40 MPG and a torsion beam rear suspension for a base price of $20,000, I would consider that a win.
Sidenote, when I was a noob and buying my first car, it was between a Kia Forte and Mazda3. I chose the Mazda3 because it had a multi-link rear setup. Every review I read on this mentioned that handling wise, this was better than a torsion beam setup.