The power difference between the Performance and LR is only at low speeds, its a fun party trick but that is about it. The handling isn't really any different, the performance just comes with stickier tires, you can always change that later. The only thing that will be very important for some people is that the Performance comes with track mode. So if you want to do autorosses or track days or drift events, that is almost a must have.
The performance has better brakes as well but, they aren't really good enough for a track day still, and don't make any substantive difference in street driving. So mostly a for show thing, imho.