Well, I wasn't talking about the twisties, that's another matter - he was only describing going in a straight line on the highway. I fully realize a car's gearing has a huge effect on acceleration. I think the Porsches are more capable than you're making them out to be; first of all you can get it with a 6-speed manual gearbox, they don't all come with the 5-auto tiptronic slushbox. All new Porsche "Turbo" models are AWD too, actually (the only exception is the GT2, which is a turbo RWD and even faster than the regular "Turbo"). According to WRXtuners.com and Road & Track, the gearing between a WRX and Porsche turbo is as follows:
Final Drive Ratios by gear:
WRX:
1st: 13.4706
2nd: 7.5933
3rd: 5.3274
4th: 3.7908
5th: 2.8782
6th: -----
Porsche Turbo:
1st: 13.1408
2nd: 7.052
3rd: 4.8504
4th: 3.8528
5th: 3.1648
6th: 2.58
1995 Mustang GT (just for comparison so everyone can see how bad my gearing sucks
):
1st: 10.318
2nd: 6.1292
3rd: 4.0964
4th: 3.08
5th: 2.0944
You can see that the WRX has slightly shorter ratios in 1st-3rd gears, but not by much. It's a little bit of an advantage, but in my opinion not enough to overcome the clear power (and low end torque) advantage of the 6-speed Porsche.