I am not just curious, I am concerned.
The Alfa brand is NOT established in North America like it once was. Its one thing to have basically niche cars like the 4c and 8c, that are really expensive toys, but not really profit drivers. If Alfa does not establish at least one entry level car, to re-establish what it once was, (the affordable exotic, family man's sportscar, or any other number of things that at least in North America really made it famous and established it as more than just an expensive Fiat) it can kiss the North American market good bye (again). Alfa needs to have a DNA and soul that customers can identify with. Alfa cant capitalize on this not matter how much marketing it does, if the cars dont align with that. Alfa hit its sweet spot in the 60's when it developed the mass production cars that were not only great sports cars / sports sedans all, but relatively affordable.
If you re-body a Maserati, and end up with essentially a convertible GT, priced around $50k, you will not achieve that at all, and people will not associate it with Alfa Romeo history. They will see a big fancy Italian car, that while beautiful, is not practical, and pretty expensive. With Alfa still something of a mystery and an unknown quantity to most Americans, when they are looking for what will essentially be a third car/toy, why are they going to take a chance with an Italian brand whose last memories at best were as a company who sold two cars: a slow sportscar with dated styling and an undeserved reputation for unreliability, and a sedan with known electrics issues, that no one could really consider over an Accord or 3 series, and was priced much higher than the first, and about the same as the second.
I was excited about the Mazda collaboration because the Miata is more in vein with the original Alfa Spider, especially in price, than the Maserati GT convertible with an Alfa grille on its nose that we are probably going to probably get, and part of what made the Miata famous was not just the gearheads and sportscar nuts that bought them because they are such good sportscars, but all of the people that bought them because they were neat little affordable cars that were a blast to drive, with awesome engineering, and were affordable to get. -just like Alfa's were at one time.
Just my $.02.