I don't understand when people complain about them. If you know what your doing, the car will treat you very well.
Yes, people complain about them because they didn't really understand what they were getting into - sometimes. I complain about mine because it was in the shop more than I drove it. I owned it for about two years, drove it daily for about 16 months, and in that 16 months, I had to have it towed 3 times for flooding. The first time, the Mazda service techs told me to rev it to redline every time I drove, which I did faithfully. That didn't work either. I had to have it towed twice more. I also want to put out there that it was not operator error - I drove this car 30 miles to work, 30 miles home, and it didn't start the next day. The last time it flooded, I had a neighbor help me tow-start it because I couldn't take another 35-mile tow bill. He pulled me in that car for 6 blocks before it started.
My list of complaints....
Condensation in taillights requiring replacement.
Broken dash buttons (at 14,000 miles).
Chintzy sun visors - passenger side was replaced once, driver's side was replaced 4 times.
Flooding issues that were not due to cold shut-downs and would not respond to the de-flooding procedure Mazda sent out.
Broken e-brake handle.
Extreme power loss when the engine was hot - so much that cruise would turn off on a highway overpass hill - maybe a 3% grade? In attempting to reproduce this problem, the dealer had the car for 6 weeks, put almost 1000 miles on it, and when I called to check, they told me that they didn't have any luck - they couldn't reproduce it, and Mazda wouldn't authorize exploratory surgery under warranty.
Underbody panels came loose due to faulty fasteners and ate a $250 tire before they could order and install replacement fasteners at the dealership.
This all happened on a car with less than 50,000 miles. I bought it with 14,000, and sold it at 49,750.
When the car was running, it was an absolute BLAST to drive. I had more fun in this car than any other I've owned (save for the SVTs). It was well-balanced, the transmission was amazing, and everything about it was communicative - steering, braking, handling. It was easy to break the rear tires loose, but equally easy to get it to come back into line with very little drama. The brakes were astonishing - I've never driven a car that stops faster.
I hope you're really happy with yours - I could have been, but I think I just got a lemon-flavored one. Not a true lemon, but almost.
There's definitely a steep learning curve with the rotary.