I've owned many VWs and Audis, and the 2008 Jetta I bought (albeit with a manual transmission) is still going strong. Not a single service issue, to date. It must have almost 200K miles.
Tough... I agree with pedal placement. I was probably more prone to occasionally stalling in intersections, but then I took the car to SF and drove there and got the feel dialed-in real quick.
I've since bought newer cars and gave this one to a relative. It's still on the original clutch/transmission, so I guess I didn't do too bad.