This was a MkIII and my ex-VW dealer mechanic sort of hated it. Sometimes he’d try to refuse pay because he wasn’t sure if he’d fixed something.
It did leave me dead in the water once when a fuel relay was failing intermittently, causing the car to suddenly shut off at speed (weeeeee) but generally it ran well and was fun to drive. They are definitely quirky… I quickly learned to always use OEM only or it would act up.
Edit: twice now that I remember. The clutch cable just snapped one day.
For me it really is like this. Gentoo was exciting. I got nervous when the founder left and I moved to OpenBSD. Enjoyed learning that too, but not quite the same magic.