Miatas and Porsche Boxsters? I'm jealous. Am I the only one who has to haul people around? Two doors and seats plus half a trunk (or a shallow mini-front trunk in the Porsche's case) that can barely fit my toothbrush is a pipe dream for me.
Either of the new 718 Boxsters promise to be great cars and definitely have the dynamics you're looking for. The only drawback is that if you're going to insist on being a purist and shifting for yourself you're going to miss out on the performance of the PDK. All of the German DSG transmissions are a value-add, as I've found with my own Audi.
Is the increased performance really substantial? I can live with .1 or .2 seconds more to 60 with a manual. But, iif the overall experience is enhanced w/ the dual clutch, that is intriguing.
W/ older automatics, I always found them non-intuitive and I braked far more than I would like. I imagine the newer dual clutch ones are a vast improvement, by and large. I just haven't tried many.