First off, I bought my car at the end of April '07 and I love this car. Although I'm positive I'd have more fun in with a manual transmission I'm sure I'm going to love it even longer with the A/T I went with due to simple comfort when motoring around Los Angeles (where I live). (Dealer didn't have sunroof or manual on lot so left without them - I'm mostly over it.)
My new car budget was pretty firm so I did a fair amount of research before my purchase. I compared it to the Toyota Yaris & Matrix, Mazda3, Nissan Versa, Scion TC -and, though they were more expensive: the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic. (I didn't look at the Aveo, Cobalt, or Focus because of a standing bad impression of American Cars. Believe me, I wanted to buy American but needed the most bang for my buck. -if they offered the warranty that Kia does, I might have considered Ford Focus or Pontiac Vibe. *Vibe has the 100,000miles but only for 5 years - why not make it 10 years? and the rest of the warranty doesn't come close.)
In the end, I feel like I got the most power, the best warranty, the best fuel economy and the cleanest emitting car for my budget. I wouldn't have even thought "KIA" if it weren't for renting a Rio from Enterprise when my old car was in the shop. I was so impressed with the car overall that, once I remembered it, I switched my focus from Toyota to Kia - and I'm glad I did.

The car handles great but I'll admit that, having had older sports cars my whole life (I'm 32), I'm used to some roll and kinda like it when I'm driving aggressively. I'm not saying this car rolls but my tolerance may be higher than some. Still, I'm not afraid to do anything in the car and recently even indulged in a little bit of racing with a bike rack and mountain bike mounted on the hatch. After pushing the car for a while I found it to be more responsive than I'd come to expect which (I hope) means it'll be even better down the road and eliminate on my "cons": over-revving for power.

At 6'3" I can tell you that it is roomy inside. I'll never have all the leg-room I want outside a truck but I'm comfortable in it, even when the back seats are folded down. In fact, it's the first seat I haven't had to push the seat all the way back (I'm one notch away from that). Driving my father around the other day I was surprised to notice that he'd been sitting with his ankle on his knee just about the whole time(he's 6'1" and has a pronounced gut)- and he hadn't even adjusted the seat.
One thing: location of the cruise control switch - it's at my knee. I've got a lot of leg so it's right where my knee is whenever I have to adjust in my seat.

I feel Kia's also done the best job of allowing for maximum loading down to the shape and placement of the rear lights; other cars seem to have lights that crowd the mouth of the hatch so you're out of luck with large items that require the entire floor space. I like to feel I can go anywhere in my car but don't want a car any bigger than I actually need: this car's got plenty of space for bikes, packs, water and camping gear as well as another passenger or two when fully loaded. I know, I've done it. But when I'm with my girlfriend for a night out I don't feel like I'm in any more car than I need and am confident I'll be able to park anywhere.

The speaker placement is good as is the radio quality and overall sound but the rear speakers could use more attention. In short: the rear speakers suck, they just do. There's nothing more I can say about them - Spend $80 on after-market 10" speakers and be much happier.
I know it's hard to find space in a hatch back for good sized rear speakers without giving up room but the quality's pretty low. NOTE: if you don't listen to music with any base and don't ever anticipate needing much volume you'll be more than satisfied, I'm sure.

Anyway, I just drove from L.A. to Zion National Park to Lees Ferry to Grand Canyon Nat'l Park with the back seats down, rear loaded and two bikes on a rack. I moved all the stuff from the back to the front seats and slept diagonally in the back at Zion and even slept in the front seat with the steering wheel tilted up one night at the Grand Canyon before hiking down - I was fine both times. I wouldn't have expected to be able to live in a car comfortably for this price and type.

Cruise control was used with great success when going through Utah and I was comfortable with taking over control when needed. The car was driven on a number of different surfaces and at all hours of the day and night for as long as 8 hours at any stretch. One of the runs was with my step dad (still loaded and still with two bikes) and I didn't notice any difference at all. He was comfortable and impressed.

The steering wheel does shudder noticeably hovering around 85mph but the car stays straight and I don't think this can be remedied outside of a redesign. It's weird but it doesn't feel unsafe. (**I'll update this if it seems to change or if it comes up as an issue during any maintenance).
I don't know about the steering switching from "light" to "stiff" or whatever I've seen others mention about other cars but I always feel in control when steering.
Also, wind and engine noise does seem to increase significantly when you drive a long time at high speeds (I kinda ran through Utah at about 95mph) - if this bothers you, see if anything can be done. Me? I just turned up the stereo volume or had the windows open anyway. When driving around town, road noise is never an issue and I'm only aware of the engine from the line or accelerating quickly.

The power of the car is "fine" but I really feel like it's got much more power than it's actually giving me. This, I believe, is due to the gearing of the A/T and I suspect I'd have gotten more out of the man.tranny. This, of course, isn't even an issue to most drivers - I just get a little racing bug in me now and again.
When I needed to overtake another car (granted, while already going pretty fast) I had to put the pedal down a good 2 seconds before the car was in a position to do so efficiently. Also, before getting power from the car it tends to over-rev first and I honestly have no idea why it'd be designed to do so. Again, given my experience during my little road race I'm expecting this might even become less of an issue down the road.
With a manual I believe I'd control all of this and get what I want out of the car more efficiently but, as it is, I'm crying about it.
-- All this to say that the car Will move and move quickly but you've got work your timing with an A/T so you're not embarrassed when you're trying to impress.

MPG drops, of course, with speedy driving + A/C - I'm not used to driving with A/C but it may be a little more than you'd expect. (Someone else that uses a/c regularly can weigh in on this.) I generally keep windows down as I'm used to convertibles or t-tops and prefer the wind to cooled air.

...I'm going on a little long here so I'll wrap up. I even did the math of Prius gas savings, total price of car and warranty over 5 years vs. the my car's MPG, total price of car and warranty at 5 years (*5 years is the length of my loan) and, even with the Prius' impressive fuel economy, I still came out ahead on price and warranty/reliability. I swear, I keep running comparisons again and again of others versus my car and I am, again and again, completely confident I bought the right car.
...and, when I drive it, I don't feel like I gave anything up in the deal. So, until I buy that Aston Martin Vantage, this is going to keep me happy and I'd recommend it to anybody.

Price: $14,808 with power everything, ABS, Cruise Control, and all those impressive standard features. (but no sunroof :( )
I also took out gap coverage 'cause it's a new car and took an extended warranty to make it 10yr/100,000 bumper-to-bumper 'cause a warranty's what I wanted anyway.
**Update: Also had alarm installed.
**Update I walked out paying about $16,606.
My credit is only "okay" but not even quite "good" (low to upper 600s).
My dealer, Andy at Glendale Kia was great and the finance guy was thorough. I test drove 4 other Kias first and asked a ton of Finance questions - both guys were patient and never made me feel rushed.

I almost felt bad for second later that I didn't go with American-made but was happy to recently learn that Kia has a West Point manufacturing plant in the works. :o)
Amount Paid (US$): 14808 base
Condition: New
Model Year: 2007
Model and Options: sx, Automatic (A/T), power package