From what I've read (but have not yet experienced), the Insights are pretty terrible winter cars, due to the offset wheel. So there's a strike against the idea of simply throwing winter tires on it. Second, my Neon had me stuck in my driveway (somewhat long gravel road) to where I had to put my cables on to get out (and even then, it was quite a show!). Third, when the snow melts, there's some pretty nasty mud. So that's just my reasoning for an AWD on a winter-only basis on a daily drive alone.
On overconfidence, I'm not your average driver. (Hell, I'm here, aren't I?!) my work has an AWD Jeep Charoke that the AWD helps quite a bit, but only a fool would drive it like there's no snow/ice on the ground! And AWD doesn't do any good for stopping...
So yeah, well aware of what having 4 wheels spinning vs 2 can do for me. lol
I took the Insight into the hills to get to a trail head and got stuck in gravel. On top of that, the roads were pretty harsh on my little DD, so I want to make sure I get something that can take that abuse. Especially since I plan on hitting much harder to reach trails in the future!
And 1 other thing: I want a backup vehicle for in case my Insight has issues.
I've driven (and raced) FWD cars my whole life. I just want to experience AWD and have a ton of room for comfortable travels.
(all that said, I'm not sold on anything, just noticed the cD differences, yet the same MPG, was curious if anybody had more info on this)