Thanks again guys, I'm feeling more informed.
Have to say 'interesting rides' are not much of a problem to me. I mostly trained on the PA-28, OK plenty of days when the 152 crowd complained about the bumps and I hadn't a clue what they were on about
- However, I stepped out of a PA-28 to a PA-18, now I know what they were talking about, but I actually liked it more because I could feel the thing. Hire of either still remains an option of course, so if I wanted to fly a PA-28 for the day I could still hire one. I would be more inclined towards owning something like the PA-18 if it wasn't such hard work. I love flying them, but not sure I could actually live with one.
I'm pretty much expecting much lighter pitch control in a SportCruiser than I was ever use to in a PA-28, I must admit 100kts cruise is enough for me. My experience of 130kts in an Arrow just left me feeling everything was happening far too quickly for my experience level - slowing down to 70kts in a Super Cub I found I enjoyed a lot more than going upwards in cruise speed.
Perhaps now the Tecnam vs SC comparison is coming down to just the financial sense side, the Tecnam seems to leave more flexibility than the SC as it ages, (could hire to a club for training for example) the SC still wins for me on simple pure good looks. I don't see the SC is too compromised by my likely mission which will mostly for the next few years be fairly short hops around to all the places that seemed too close to bother taking a PA-28 into with the odd longer touring trip. The primary objective is to get away from the hire spiral and associated low currency I've achieved in the past couple of years.
I certainly could see me going off for a weekend with the SC and a tent and being very happy
It's not a one horse race though, for sure I'll be looking at getting flights in both before making the commitment, as much as I love the concept of the SC it's hard to ignore the sense of the Tecnam.