Josh wasn't at all interested in the Subie. I like them a lot, but it's his car though, so his choice. He got CVT Altima. We both were biased towards a manual, but it turned out to be very short throw and he had a lot of trouble differentiating 1st and 3rd. Plus the clutch take up was pretty abrupt and he kept breaking it loose on take off. The CVT was actually pretty sweet. Snapped off super fast, but not overly hard, shifts and did a very good job of managing the torque on take off.
After a week in this Altima rental car, I'd take a Civic over it any day.
I hope Josh enjoys his new car, but the 2.5S sedan hasn't grown on me one bit.