I have unfortunately now sold my Mazda, which I bought from my company and having changed jobs I didnt want another diesel as my low mileage was going to be a lot lower now.
However, I had the same dilemma and to me it's appears to be a Japanese thing as well. Having bought mainly Japanese cars I wanted a decent power output from a petrol engine and generally favouring the Honda brand they're large engined Accords are real polluters these days and on top of that Honda have pulled the plug on the Accord model in the UK.
Also with the Japanese petrol they don't seem to have turbos so progress is made by working the engine hard and using the full rev range. It is for that reason I've gone to a German brand where I now have 1.8 petrol turbo with 7 gears.
I strongly believe that Mazda, Honda and Toyota are missing out in this market, but to be fair to Mazda they seem to have done well over the last few years and have over taken Honda with the technology in their cars. If only they did Skyactive petrol turbo on their 2 litre engines?