[JamesNoBrakes]

I had a 2004 WRX. It was fun, I did some engine mods and was running stage 2 with some decent gains. Lots of low-speed punch, which made the car a lot of fun.

Not so good was the handling, lots of body roll and massive under-steer (followed by snap-oversteer). That's just the nature of the engine placement. You can minimize it by increasing the limits with better suspension components, but it'll always be there IMO with that layout.

I got a C5 2010 Camaro SS to replace it, I upgraded the camaro with sways and some body reinforcements. It out-handled the WRX so much it was ridiculous. Even in the rain, the Camaro would run rings around the WRX handling wise, and of course a lot more top-end on the Camaro. When things got wintery...well, the Subaru wasn't all that great with performance tires, in fact, it was pretty crappy, not as crappy as a Camaro, but enough that it was still pretty bad. The disadvantage with the Camaro was power was a little less accessible. The WRX can get a drop on most anything with turbo and AWD, by the time you get to 60, it might be about even, but things will get illegal fast and you've already had your fun. That's the fun of the WRX, it's more punchy at lower speeds, you can feel that turbo kick in more and it launches the car more. That can be quite fun. In the Camaro, you got to rev up pretty high to get into the fun zone, and if you are in anything other than 2nd, the fun zone is also a highly illegal zone, in terms of speeds. It'll keep pulling, but you need a lot of desolate road and it's a pretty high risk. The WRX would get up to 140 without much trouble.

I have the Gen 6 SS 1LE now, it's fun as heck, but again, in a somewhat different way. The handling is far better of course, the chassis is just very very good. It still has the "accessibility" issue with the power IMO, it's not that it's bad, but if you live for stop-lights and on-ramps, you'd be pretty well served with the WRX. I definitely have a soft spot for the WRX, but Subaru has always been frustrating with their US market cars. I feel the STI should be pushing 400hp at least these days with the WRX around the 300 point, they should be putting wider rubber on both, they finally updated the turbo and gave the WRX a 6th gear, but that should have happened a long time ago. They are tremendously fun cars with their short gearing and turbo kick, but definitely in a different way than the Camaro.