The EJ257 motor is not a great design. The world wide version of the EJ powerplant is significantly different, it's a 2.0L motor which has numerous benefits to alleviate the issues with the 2.5L motors we get. The pistons are too big because the motor cannot remain a horizontal layout with a big stroke unless you reduce the rod length significantly which greatly increases internal stress. Hence, the motor is a patchwork ... and it suffers from headgasket and piston durability as a result.
The motors that reliably hold 500+ HP have forged pistons, forged rods, nitrated crankshafts, sleeves, and have gone to a closed deck or semi-closed deck design. Even then, you don't really hear about all the little maintenance and headaches associated with them.
Most of the ringland issues are probably due to people driving the piss out of the cars and not taking care of them, and Subaru's crappy OEM tune, and the horizontal motor loving to put oil through the PCV system. I've been running OTS and ProTune on my STI with anywhere from 14 PSI to 21 PSI since 24 miles with no ringland issues. I drive the piss out of my car, but I do it in spurts to ensure that chamber and block temps have time to lessen. I also monitor for knock and know specific patterns that create it.
Mid-engined and rear engined cars like the Porsches, especially the N/A models are easy to launch also. They are nearly as fast on a good surface from my experience. On a less than ideal surface like your average commuter road ... AWD is a massive advantage. I can launch my STI off the launch control at 5500 RPM and 1 BAR of boost with very little spin. You simply cannot hope to put down the power like that in a RWD car ... it just doesn't happen without running some sort of prepped surface or a drag radial and some spin. It'd take a significant power advantage to hold tight with an STI or EVO off a launch in a RWD car.
