The positioning of the front door badges does look strange IMHO. I read that they were repositioned there as it wasn’t possible for the GTE to have front wing mounted badges because of the electric charging flap on the near side front wing. Moving the GTI badges to the front doors means there’s consistency of badge placement with the GTE - presumably the mk8.5 R will also have door mounted badges?
I seem to remember when the mk8 was launched there was the same dislike with VW’s repositioning of the GTI tailgate badge compared to the bottom left placement on previous models. I don’t think I’ve seen any mk8 GTI’s where owners have either removed or repositioned the tailgate badge to the traditional bottom left corner position though. Presumably owners just get used to the different badge placement position and grow to accept it over time.
As @BillSan has said, if owners don’t like the door mounted badges they can easily be removed.
