You have to keep in mind the factor that causes all this and that here in USA is the fricking EPA.
Like it or not :
1. Most people here buy SUV or pickups to look cool and never use them as they were designed for (less MPG)
2. The BS in lobbies for corn based ethanol ( now up to 20% and 85% for flex fuel vehicles)
3. Those wanting to make huge profits in hybrid and electric vehicles
Fact EPA requires fuel mile averages to be 46 MPG within four years has forced how vehicle design of today
is biased to meeting EPA.
GM and Ford do not even want to make cars in the USA anymore as not the big sellers, so their corporate fuel mileage
is nowhere near the coming 46 MPG so that forces nameplate design to be forced to all makes to attempt to get
the fuel mileage.
You can bet the C8 Corvette was designed for in near future
1. Using smaller engines
2. having to make the differences up in performance loss by using some type of boost
3. adding electric to drive front wheels
This means a whole new voltage design system, batteries, etc
This meant the choice was kill off the Corvette or design C8 to be able to add the above in short time-frame
That leads to a base C8 using a N/A LT2, a ZORO model with smaller engine and using boost and
The E-Vette model that is electric
Moving the gas engine in rear allowed for better aero to help MPG and room for the electric parts.
Sadly due to most young guys today either cannot properly shift a manual tranny or are to lazy to has forced
it looks like Base C8 only having a DCT type tranny.
Lastly the Obama gang forced who controlled GM put women and others in top positions who are doing exactly as obama wanted as
to killing off gas engines, Barra has spent billions of GM money on non gas engine designs and would have rather killed off
the Corvette to claim how "electric" driven GM is.
I'd say wait until you can see or drive a C8 to decide if mid-engine is a failure for Corvette but at this point under Barra the C5 Corvettes sold about 35,000 units a year and C7s are down to less then 19,000 a year and she had no problem allowing that to happen and drag C8 road testing for over 2 years now shows she care less if Corvette's history is killed off.
The real killer has been even with C7s is GM switched how their controllers function as to being locked, hack-proof to prevent any
tuning of those controller calibrations, kills off adding performance mods at all
In what I have seen on this forum is not many Corvettes in your country, far less having C5 and newer, not interested in grass roots racing or doing performance mods so wait until we here in USA beat the piss out of C8s and see what they are made for as to Corvettes racing and performance history