My parents have a 99 Magna, and it is a great car to drive, very smooth, excellent engine with plety of response and torque... However, when you drive it through a corner slightly harder it does understeer and powering out of a corner is far more difficult than a Commodore. I would still take the Magna over the Commodore a million times over, it is better built, MUCH better engine, MUCH MUCH better transmission and as a family car it performs its function very well.
But it does highlight the weakness of FWD, but its not a performance car so I don't see it as an issue. A hot hatch is meant to be sporty, but with FWD it will torque steer and understeer, I saw a clip with J Clarkson in the hotted up Astra, he left his hands off the wheel and floored it from stand still, and as boost came on the steering wheel would just turn...
Overall though I think the hot hatches handle well and are good cars, (i'd take the Golf GTI before the XR5 though for sure!!) but I really would not say they handle as well as 33 gts-t etc.