If money was no object, I wouldn't have been looking at vehicles under 30g's. I had set out on purchasing a vehicle given certain criteria I had decided upon. Let's put it this way, all of the vehicles under the price limit that I looked at all had negative aspects to which I had to consider. Each vehicle also had positive aspects too. In the end it boiled down to the the SVT Focus and the Dodge SRT-4. You already know what I chose.
On a final note, this vehicle is not going to be used as a daily driver or as a commuter vehicle, so my criteria for choosing this vehicle is probably different than for others.