You about hit the nail on the head, this is not 1995. Ford can not just put out another impala ss clone and expect us to spend our hard earned money on the car. We want AWD, a manual transmission and 400hp so the car can be right up there with the G8 and grab the rags attention. The car needs to get people excited and drooling over taking one out for a test drive!!!!!! Other wise its going to be 5th place on the enthusiast comparison tests and like you said get destroyed in the performance road tests and if thats how its going to be, I will be glad the SHO name plate will not be on the car.
Again though, I will hold judgment until something firm comes from ford. I know they are working on something good, I just hope its not what that article is talking about.
At this point I am still enthusiastic about every thing I have heard so far "excluding this article".