My wifes got a T-Sport and its wicked. OK its not a proper hot hatch, but IMHO it looks mental and it goes pretty well. Its never broken down, the dealer service at our local place is top notch - on the very last day of its warranty period it came back from service with loads of odds and sods needing doing and everything was sorted without any hassle or cost, including a full new set of alloys because one of them had bubbled a little and a full new set of brake discs because a couple had rust on them.
Plus T-Sports arent that common, which is something worth paying for these days I reckon. Much as I like Clios, Ive never been a big fan of the mk2 shape and think it looks more girly in its own way than the Yaris. At least the Yaris looks designed, the modern Clios look like they just replaced any hard edges with curves.
When she bought it, we were seriously looking at a second hand 172, but to be honest, the Renault dealers had the attitiude that they were sitting on some kind of goldmine almost as if they were doing us a favour by letting my wife drive it, whereas the Toyota dealers were much more normal, not OTT, but just normal. And when we looked at a silver 172 next to our bright red Yaris T-Sport with the full factory body kit etc, there was just no competition, the Clio just didnt look like a car youd spend 10 or 11 grand on. Plus the Yaris load space was a lot bigger than a Clio. You try getting a 1m square board into the back of a Clio, which you can do in a Yaris.
Only gripe is that the interior trim plastic is very easily marked.