Just bought my almera today, lovely 3 door red hatch sport version.
nice inside and out, full nissan history, lovely drive home in it, cant wait to get back to it from work.
Traded in a stilo, which contrary to popular belief isnt the complete lemmon everyone makes it out to be, e.g. i drove 37k on the clock in just 3 years and only now did i get an engine problem.
Its prob spark plugs, but as i decided to change it, i didnt bother getting it fixed.
For your moneysworth... you can buy a 03 Stilo for about 9K.
On which to choose, supermini or hatch, having gone from a punto (fiats clio) to the Stilo (fiats almera) if i was you, i would skip the super mini and go with the almera.
Even if your basing it on size, there were usually only 2 of us in the car and it sometimes got cramped in the punto but even though the stilo was a 3 door the extra space (boot inlcuded, its massive) meant that road trips were more fun and comfortable
Best of luck. From a new almera owner, take the nissan!!!!!