Two things flying around this page:
1. Body roll
It's not a flaw, it's not some magic new suspension trick. It's a design choice, just look at any old-timey racecar, Mercedes Gullwing, an F1 car piloted by Fangio or Jim Clark or Stirling Moss, transferring the weight of the car and loading up the suspension was the primary tactic to getting rotation and maintaining compliance on less than ideal surfaces given the technology they had available, still used today in thousands of sprint cars and late models on dirt tracks. Flat and controlled is better with what we know today and modern surfaces, keeping all four wheels in maximum contact with the ground gives the most grip and ergo the highest speed through the corners. Go back to the late 70's and early 80's, Lotus wanted a car so stiff in order to keep all four wheels on the ground and run the most aggressive aero package possible it would tear the driver apart, Colin Chapman was developing a suspended drivers cockpit to make it work before ground effects were outlawed and he left the world.
Mazda has always had body roll in the Miata, it grips, it's proven and the ride quality is comfortable enough to sell to housewives, hairdressers, mid-life crisis-ers and retirees who don't want a racecar, the guys who want that are going to buy adjustable coilovers and lower the car beyond what is mass-marketable anyway. The Miata wins over many people that Toyota missed, there's probably a couple hundred posts here about the ride quality of the 86 stock being too rough for potential buyers and less enthusiastic spouses.
2. Pobst's comments on tires and the inevitable 'equal rubber' debate
If there's anyone who understands high vs low grip and experiencing both on the same car currently contributing to the early reviews of the Miata it's a racing driver like Pobst who is paid to destroy tires and bring them home unusable. Some cars are useless when the grip is low and magic when the grip is high, some the opposite, the dynamic difference can be dramatic. A lot of people, myself included, have posted how the car improves with good rubber, 'transformed' is used a lot. To an experienced hand, the addition of grip to a chassis capable of utilizing it does not really change how the car feels acts and behaves, again going back to point one
it's a choice. Tires that last 40 minutes on track, 4 days on track, or 40,000 miles, sure the lap times will be separated by seconds between all those tires but on a good chassis like the 86 the driving experience is roughly similar. On a lesser chassis like the Mustang in that tire comparison with the BRZ quoted above Pobst noted that the Mustang was less composed on the Pilot Super Sport although the lap times dropped. Skip to 5 minutes to see his assessment of fitting grippier tires to the Mustang. (Of note the BMW in the video is wearing the same compound Bridgestone S001 as the Miata tested by Motortrend if I'm not mistaken).
To the comments about adding grip reducing speed, here's Edmunds data going to 8.5" wide AD08's, 0.1s slower to 75, 0.1s quicker down the quarter mile, massive improvement laterally. The lateral improvement far outweighs the loss in straightline on most tracks.
http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/t...rack-test.html
How many people are actually going to compare lap times on stock cars for more than a day or two? Any magazine that does mild upgrades will no doubt do them wrong in >50% of readerships eyes (eww not Hankooks/Dunlops/KW/Konis/Brembos/Stoptech/18").
An exercise in futility imo, neither car is about laptime, if it's truly the deciding factor between the two you're probably better off buying something faster or something you can actually race for same or lesser money. And as always, a driver skill differential can eliminate, reduce, or downright embarrass any advantage 'proven' in a magazine.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSqWD5BSeoY"]Testing Tires with Subaru BRZ, Ford Mustang & BMW 328i! The Downshift Ep. 65 - YouTube[/ame]