The powerband thing: You just cant compare the two cars, they are so completely different that any comparison is worthless.
A naturally aspirated petrol is something that builds up the more you rev it.
Diesels are not. They are something like "nothing, nothing, nothing, BANG-ALL-THE-POWER-AT-ONCE-WHEELS-SPINNING-TORQUESTEER, fading, fading, gone".
I had to chuckle before at the comment that with a TDI you can drive around town all day in 4th. That is no more true for a TDI than it is for a petrol. In my old Fab vRS is had a languid 1000 rpm, and then once you hit just below 2000 rpm then it would shift. I seem to remember 30 mph being around 1900 rpm in 4th in that car. Now, any less than that, and it had NO torque whatsoever, and would practically refuse to move. How many towns can you maintain 30 mph around? I drive around newcastle every single day, and if I could maintain 30 mph average on any day, I would be absolutely amazed TBH.
Now, with the Clio, I can actually drive at 20 mph in 4th if i desire, and the car will pull cleanly from those revs. Thats more than I could say about the TDI.
So the thought that you have to stir the gearbox is no more true for a petrol than a diesel. In fact, I'd argue that to drive a diesel genuinely quick, you often need, if anything, slightly more gear changes than a petrol. For example, by the time I'd reached 65 in a Fabia vRS I'd be reaching for 4th, in the Clio i'll be reaching for 3rd.
Its true that in every day driving a (chipped) TDI will beat a 182. Why? Well how many people drive around all the time with their car on cam? Not me, and I do drive very fast. You simply rarely get the chance around town. However, on the open road, where I can drive with real intent (i.e. car on cam all the time), then its a different story. As I said, I have already proved to myself that my very lightly modded 182 is quicker both in a straight line and around corners than a breathed on Fabia VRS. If anyone is having trouble, then i really cant explain it. Sure enough some of the 150's might not be completely blown away, but you should stay ahead and pull some lengths on it.
And in the end, for a keen driver, nothing beats the thrill of keeping a revvy petrol engine on cam around the twisties.
Another thing I found with the diesel, was by their nature of having nothing at all before the turbo kicks in, you want to keep the turbo spinning when you change up. To do this, in my Fabia i was revving to 3500 rpm in the lower gears and 3000 rpm in the higher gears at least. Incidentally, this was subjectivey where much of the power seemed to be before tailing off. So driving it every day, yes you were going quickly, but you were using most of its potential in almost every driving situation, and when you wanted to really stretch its legs it didnt appear to have much more left to give whereas when you rev a petrol, its a different story, most are much faster when revved than when driven at lower revs. The 1x2 engine is almost like two different engines. The sensible but torquey engine at lower revs, and the manic one at high revs.
Incidentally, I dont miss the torque that much. Sure you have to rev the clio a bit higher, but i find by keeping the revs between 3000 - 5000 rpm on the Clio you get plenty of grunt and can drive very quickly without thrashing it. Even that range is more than enough to see off the average car. Incidentally, if you replaced the 0 - 8000 rpm numbers with the 0-5000 numbers of a TDI, you'd see that while the petrol is making more noise, in terms of effort, the engines are doing about the same amount of work relative to their potential.
