Oh yea it affected drivability, most notibly in traffic.

If no one was behind me, no big deal. But if one of these butt-riding drivers was behind me, I'd have to shift immediately, slamming my clutch into 3800-4000 rpm's worth of revs every time. Experiment with shifting into 4000 rpm's in every gear and you'll see what I mean.

On second thought, don't do that.

That problem got ironed out at about 36k though, and since then it drives like a dream. If I can get the starting issue fixed, the only thing remaining will be a stiff clutch after the car's been warm for awhile.