OT: A car guy that hates buying cars

I'm a bit of a sports car nut, much to the chagrin of my beautiful, wonderful, loving wife (hi honey!). Cars, to her, are expensive, horrible investments that are scary necessities of life, and fast cars are the worst of the bunch. Ok, so she might be right, but she's missing one key element. The right car on the right road can be SO much fun.

We are looking to replace our boring, underpowered, really reliable Honda Civic. Since we live in Colorado, we both agreed that our next car has to have all-wheel drive, manual and be a 4 door sedan. 4-door sedans are a dime a dozen, but all-wheel drive is more "exclusive". That's where I stepped in and ruined it all. I want something that I ENJOY driving, a 4-door all-wheel drive sports sedan. Well, that knocked the potential contenders down quite a bit. Since I was allowed my requirement, to be fair, my wife was now given the opportunity to add hers, if she had one. She responds with "It has to be more luxurious than the Civic. It has to have leather interior, heated seats ... you know, luxury." Oh hell, we are SCREWED.

So, what we're left with (that we have any chance of affording) falls into either a family sedan or upscale sedan category, depending on who you talk to. The contenders are:
Audi A4 2.0T Quattro
BMW 328xi
Lexus IS250
MazdaSpeed6
Mercedes-Benz C-Class
Subaru Legacy 2.5GT Limited
Subaru WRX STi Limited
Volkswagen Passat
Volvo S60 R

The Lexus, Volkswagen, and the Volvo don't have the combination of performance and handling that I require, and the MazdaSpeed6 and MB C-Class are notably less reliable than average. The WRX STi is a brute, so much so that it would probably give my wife a heart attack, and not to mention, the Limited version is quite difficult to find, leaving:

Audi A4 2.0T Quattro
BMW 328xi
Subaru Legacy 2.5GT Limited

The Subaru is the bang-for-buck winner, hands down, and has a lot of aftermarket upgrade appeal. The BMW is a true drivers car, with a silky smooth inline-6, great handling and feel, but ouch, you pay for it. The A4's new 2.0T engine has solved some of the issues with the turbo lag of the original 1.8T, but it's still the weakest of the bunch.

Where's that winning lottery ticket when I need it?

Cheers.