Obviously a very personal decision but here is what we went through, hope it helps. We went with performance, took delivery yesterday and are very pleased. we went back and forth for many months on every configuration option available. a bunch of little things came together to tip the scale in the performance direction for us. Our fourth "test" drive was of a production performance, we had a chance to go for an extended drive and it clinched the deal. this was the first time I saw the carbon fiber accents actually in a vehicle, they are much more beautiful than we had imagined from looking at the sample in store and for some reason the fit and finish feels more solid with them! We had concerns about how durable the other trim options would be and are very confident the carbon fiber has a finish that will look great for a long time to come. For my tastes, the carbon really goes well with the gray interior. I also really like the look of the spoiler with the gray metallic paint. I really don't like the look of the red piping on the black leather, so thankfully the grey leather has a tan/white piping that matches the suede ceiling. Kind of minor on one hand, on the other, it's the only color combination that really seemed to bring it all together and when you are spending this kind of money and going through the trouble of a pre-order, it should be exactly the way you want it. The other considerations for us were looks, cost, utility and resale value of the performance rims. the equation became complex, the 21's are not so great in the winter with the soft performance rubber becoming harder and slicker in cold whether, but we don't really get that much of a winter here and accept for the occasional joy ride we are hyper milers, which from talking around will likely give us about 20K miles on them, so not so bad. they curb more easily but that is preventable with the addition of relatively inexpensive gators. in terms of looks they are way more appealing to us than the 19"s and presumably have better resale value, especially if you can leverage the pre-price increase inclusion. After the price increase the performance is $2,500 extra for base and another $3,500 for the performance wheels. Since we are buying on the cusp of the increase we think we have a fair chance at recapturing some of that value if we should decide to resell the wheels or the whole car at some point. Also, we have been seriously considering going third party with the 19" rotary blade rims shown in another thread. We figure we can sell the 21"s for more than we can sell the 19", making the switch to the 3rd party 19"s less costly should we decide to go in that direction. Bottom line for the wheels, the thick spokes of the 19"s when looking from anything but perfect side profile just don't have the appeal to us, even though they are probably more practical in terms of all season tire options. we may just get spider spikes for the 21"s for an easy on off in the winter during the occasional cold snap for the few weeks/months we get ice here. it's the porcelain white ice here that make the roads so slick that cars slide off from a stand still at times. it doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's critical to have a quick way to get good traction, especially without AWD, something that only chains seems to really be able to provide. We really want to avoid having to change out tires and rims for the winter. We've only put a hundred miles on the car so far and are now in love with all aspects of the performance and are very happy we went that way. From what I've read, the place you will notice the faster zero to sixty is not actually the zero to sixty, it's the almost endless acceleration at 60+. For people who appreciate the incredible feeling of being able to jump effortlessly from 60 to 80, there is an argument for it, it's really quite exhilarating and puts the Performance S on par with some very pricy ICE cars!
