I have the FR ST 184 diesel, and my daily commute is 2 miles each way. The reason I got it 2 years ago is because the contract hire price was much cheaper than any of the petrol FRs.
With the DPF - mine will go about 2 weeks with the above commute, and if I've not done any longer journeys (20 miles+), I then get the DPF message on the dashboard. I live near Gatwick so a late-night drive down the A23 to Brighton and back again does the trick and clears it. It is a bit annoying though as it always happens at the most inconvenient time!
Also - quite often I'll do a longer motorway journey of 50 miles plus, and then the next day the car starts doing a regen (which eventually fails due to the short journeys...).
In summary - it's manageable but irritating. Modern diesels definitely aren't designed for predominantly short journeys. My next one will be the 1.4 ECOTsi.
The only other issues I've had are the wheel nut covers falling off (18 inch wheels) which is irritating (even the warranty replacements have started falling off!), and plenty of rattles and creaks from the boot / rear suspension area. My car has only done 12k miles so I dread to think what it would be like after double that.
