Personal preference...I can't stand smooth, effortless, non-positive shifters: the ND shifter is the most effortless shifter I've ever experienced. Give me a nice, extremely positive and 'notchy' shifter any day, every day. I have been acclimated to the CAE Ultra shifter in my FR-S, which is an extremely positive and ultra precise racing shifter unit that has neutral return spring. It's what I would consider the perfect type of shifter feel. The Miata is completely opposite, it's simply so freaking smooth and ridiculously light with no real positive neutral detent or gear engagement so to speak - it just freaking wants to go to the next gear on its own it seems whether going up or down and just ends up there without satisfactorily clicking into place. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not what I'd call a positive shifter. I'd take a stock FR-S shifter over the miata shifter...it much, much better to me.
As for the driving position, I will just say when trying to get a proper seating position the stock miata does not work for me... I have to drive in a compromised position. Steering wheel and shifter position/angle for arms is more important for me than feet being at the ideal distance and angle. I'm 6'2" and for a comfortable steering and shifting position the seat needed to be near the midway point of its adjustment (just like with the FR-S.) The presenter in the video said he's 6'3" and had the seat all the way back...either he has orangutan arms or likes driving and shifting from a little too far back...which it looked like with his arms over extended. Fitting in a car /= being able to find a proper seating position in the car.
To me, the stock FR-S seats really suck....much more so than the Miata seats. They are too high and not comfortable for anything more than 15 minutes, because of the bad bottom shape and angle, along with the seat not fitting my shoulders correctly. They were the one major issue I had with the FR-S and I was finally able to mostly fix recently with an aftermarket seat and custom bracketry. Still need to tweak the brackets to lower the position more and provide more rake angle. Then the steering wheel will need to come further out...which means column extension. But even with the sucky stock FR-S seats, I could still get a better driving position than in the Miata - because telescoping column...
Stock seating is done for ease of getting in and out of the car while being 'ergonomic enough'... one size fits all doesn't work unless the seat can adapt to the drivers ergonomics... sliding back and forth and tilting the seat back is a half hearted attempt at adapting to the drivers ergonomics.
There would be a much better driving position available for either the Miata or FR-S stock if you could have the seat adjusted with a nice supportive rake to both the bottom and back angle and enough telescoping of the steering wheel (the miata, yet again, has zero telescoping adjustment
). To let you know what I mean exactly, this is a previous track vehicle that I had setup with the absolutely perfect no-compromises driving position for myself (lowered some 3-4" from stock height in addition too, Note: steering wheel is in a more upright position for ingress/egress ease):
seat view,
side view
Basically it was a seating position close to this:
The car also had a very nice positive shifter installed...a Hurst Competition Plus...
So the above should give you an idea where I'm coming from in not liking the shifter and driving position in the new miata.