Many thanks for this further advice, and apologies for taking so long to reply. In the end, I decided to make the change now, as I felt the longer I left it the less chance there would be of finding a reasonably low mileage example. I didn’t want to wait for third generation prices to fall, as I really need a hatchback (and I see that even the most basic third generation cars have 17 inch wheels, which I dislike).
I ended up buying a 2011 2.0 TS with about 53,000 miles. It felt a lot better than the 2012 example on the test drive, and so far I’m pretty pleased with it. It certainly isn’t as much fun to drive as the old one, but, on the plus side, it’s smoother and quieter than my old car (in particular, there’s less wind noise), and feels roomier. As far as features that the old car didn’t have are concerned, the electric boot release is a bit of a gimmick, but quite useful, I suppose. I’m neutral about the dual air conditioning, which I suspect I’m not going to use much. On the minus side, there are some more or less minor niggles: I really dislike the hideous spoiler, which rather ruins the car’s looks – it is tempting to remove it, though I don’t know how practicable that would be; there is less storage space inside the car (and there wasn’t that much in the old one) – I do wish the door pockets were bigger; and the temperature and radio display seems (unnecessarily) a long way away, which I don’t like (though I do like having the information button on the steering wheel). But, notwithstanding all this, it’s a nice car – and I hope it will be as reliable as my last one. (They are both petrol, by the way.)
As a final point, I was never able to change the temperature display on my old car to Fahrenheit. If anyone knows whether this can be done, and if so how, I’d be very grateful.