When I look at old Miatas I don’t see a successful nod toward sports car heritage (in terms of styling), I see a poor imitation of it. Take an approximation of a 1960s British sports car and drown it in vanilla and as much cheapo ABS as you can muster.
Not knocking the performance or fun factor of any generation of Miata, but to me, smallness/blobbiness does not equate with iconic styling.