re: Give me a reason to not pull the trigger on a subaru

After owning an Outback, I owned a 1st gen WRX wagon with a stick for well over a decade. Very fun to drive in the mountains but horrific gas mileage if you stay on the boost all the time (to avoid the low torque at low revs and the lag). I took it up to Tahoe for snowboarding many times. Fun to drive in the snow and it's great to just drive by the chain control along I-80 or Hwy 50 without stopping.

If you put enough miles on it (>150K), eventually you'll have to get the head gaskets replaced, and it's a big job because the flat engine layout makes it hard to get to the heads, so high-mileage maintenance will cost more than a typical inline 4 engine. Just something to be aware of.

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Unless I want a manual (I don’t cuz traffic) I’m going wrx. Also the price diff between Sti and wrx is pretty steep

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The recent WRXs are reasonably close in HP to the WTI, so it's not worth the price differential for every day street use. The Engineering Explained guy talks a bit about it here:

Why I'm Selling My Subaru WRX STI (Engineering Explained)