Ive always liked to buy my vehicle's standard and work them from there, that way you can guage what everything has done as you have modified it.

If there is no reason you'd choose a GC8 over the other models then just buy the newer one, it only makes sense to me (newer and improved).

But i also only like GC8's and not really any of the newer ones (biased). Weight for me is also an issue

New = fat (heavy, with same engine 2L = more to push), stiffer from factory + wider (aint shit you can really do about that for a gc8 besides a 22b kit and lots of money to get the wheels further out)

Old = light (at least i know the sedan is, infact the MY00 STI weigh's 10kg less the a FC RX7!).