This thread is an EPIC SAGA! It has it all! Love, loss, conflict, bitterness, anger, regret, and redemption! Lol
Congrats to OP on the existential journey.
I went from EvoX to modded EvoX to GTR to modded GTR to stock 996 C2 to stock E92M for very different reasons than the OP, but share many of the conclusions of some of the posters here.
For me what drove me away, and has kept me away, from the GTR was a combination of the horrifically bad dealer experience and the fact that the car just never quite clicked with me enough to justify having that kind of cash sitting in it. Hence I sold it, got the M, and put money back in the bank for a change
The dealer thing is big for me... I really got tired of it with my Vette, the NSXs I've owned and the Mitsubishi.
Not interested in being convinced I'm wrong, should be using indy's or doing my own wrenching either. Everyone values different things and being able to bring the car in to a nicely set up shop with nice customer spaces and always get a clean loaner without having to call Nissan NA and prove I'm owed one (yes, that happened, lol) is a big deal to me.
Rolling into the average Nissan dealer wearing the equivalent of a sign that screams "I have too much $$$" and then hanging in the DMV level waiting room with people driving 100k mi Sentras glaring at you gets old too... Lol
Regular marques that produce these weird quasi exotic outliers *always* fuck it up and mishandle the entire experience imo. And yes I am sure there are people who LOVE their Nissan and Chevy dealers and despise BMW dealers. Different strokes
For me the times I've owned BMW (5 of those and a Mini), Benz (1 of those) and porsche (2 of those) the ownership experience has been a great one from the first sales call straight through to the end. With Nissan it took me MONTHS to be allowed to even sit in one (I had a dealer run a CREDIT check to OPEN the car... No joke) and when I finally bought it was at a PORSCHE dealer who tossed me the keys on a recent trade. Says a lot IMO.