I disagree. Gearboxes in performance cars can feel pretty 'rough', but thats usually because of the additional beefed up components that have had to be installed to make them more robust. My 205 saloon, when cold in particular is quite 'abrupt' when changing at low speed, does it bother me? Nope, I see it as a quirk of the car. But when you wind it out its smooth and quick through all the gears. Likewise, my old E46 M3 (Manual) was horrendous at low speed, very notchy and with a unnaturally long throw on the stick for a car of its ilk.
More relevant to this discussion though, was that it had what was described to me as 'driveline shunt', so if you had the clutch in when you drove over a drain cover, you would hear (and feel) a massive clunk from the drivetrain or feel a noticeable 'shunt' when engaging the lower gears at low speed - all perfectly normal as I came to learn. All because the gearbox and driveline had to have certain tolerances built in to cope with 343hp.
Not saying your car didn't have its issues but it isn't fair to compare the box from a mass produced everyday diesel to a previous generation box mated to a car with nearly twice the power.
