I watched my buddy sink $4,800 into his STI last summer. Spun bearing. Classic EJ257 moment. He'd already done head gaskets at 80k, and the ringland failure was just the engine's way of saying goodbye. Meanwhile I'm sitting there in an Evo X with a bone-stock 4B11T that's been making reliable power since 2009 and hasn't asked me for anything but oil changes and good fuel. Here's the thing nobody wants to admit — the STI tax is real and it's not justified by the hardware. You're paying a premium for a boxer motor that Subaru never really fixed, bolted to a platform that peaked in 2007. The Evo X gave you a modern DOHC turbo four with MIVEC, a dual-clutch option that was genuinely ahead of its time, and a chassis that still embarrasses cars twice its price on a back road. And right now? Clean Evos are still trading for less than comparable STIs in most markets. That gap won't last forever — the Evo is already climbing because Mitsubishi killed it off and the supply is what it is. I'm n...