[Nugget]

The S makes a lot of sense if the included options are things you would have wanted to add to the base car anyway. If you want the xenon lights and the active suspension then your "base" is going to creep into "s" pricing in any event. Factor in the much larger brakes in the "s" (not available for add-on to the base) and the extra displacement of the 3.8 is practically free. Plus you're a lot more likely to re-capture that value when you resell or trade since the "s" impacts your KBB value in a way that straight options never will. It was a pretty easy decision for me.

On the flip side I think the Sport Chrono (which I have) is one of the most ridiculously useless pieces of affected gimmickry sold since the talking japanese cars of the mid '80s. It adds precisely zero performance to the car, makes the throttle twitchier and harder to modulate on the track, and looks godawful ugly stuck to the middle of the dashboard. I was keen to get the sport chrono because I was interested in the more relaxed PSM stability management setting that it provides, but in practice I find that I don't use it. Even in non-sport mode the PSM is so accommodating that I've never had the PSM interfere with me on the track, and when I autocross I turn PSM off entirely. There's virtually no chance I'd ever buy it again. On a turbo or a tiptronic car the value is marginally better, but on a NA engine with a standard shifter there's no reason to buy it.