Sorry I don't have the time to put it all into a nice clean post, but the link below will take you to a page that has the HP, torque, 0-60 times and 1/4 mile times for basically every Camaro up through the 4th gen. You can see that as far as performance is concerned, our new V6 has PLENTY compared to the V8s of prior generations.
http://musclecarfacts.net/camaro-statistics.html