I so nearly bought this car over my Altima 3.5 SE. In terms of bang for the buck in a sports sedan, it is pretty tought to beat. Handling is terrific, with seemingly endless grip from the AWD system. Acceleration in almost any gear at almost any speed is ferocious. This is what happens when you have 6 well-spaced gears and a truck load of torque peaking at around 3k. Very impressive.
Things that held me back:
1) I found the vehicle somewhat recalcitrant in city driving. The clutch is on the finicky side, with abrupt engagement when you're just trying for smooth and slow. Lurch and lunge gets a bit tiresome. And that zero-body-roll suspension setup made for less than optimal ride compliance over lumpy downtown Toronto streets.
2) Exterior styling: the visually raised hood (to accomodate the turbo plumbing) and lowered tail (smaller spoiler than the regular 6) gave it a bit of an awkward nose-in-the-air stance.
3) Interior styling: inoffensive, but somehwat boring Japan Inc. The nav rising like some evil monolith from the top of the dash was not to my liking, either.
4) Extremely limited colour choice. You like black, silver or red? You better.
5) The whoop, whistle, splutter and gasp sounds from the turbo mill get old fast. I much prefer the sweet snarl of a quality V6.
Still, if a sporting drive is the main priority, it is pretty tough to beat.
Jaeger