This is gonna become another xx vs xx flaming thread
All I can say and my 2 cents is, the older generation cars have more r&d into them, i read up on an article where director and owner of spoon sports wrote about the 1997 preface and 99 facelift civics, it was the only Honda ever made that had to be built specifics different, every nut and bolt, brake disk,caliper, pads, injector rate, driveshaft weight was all different in each corner, Honda didn't create a car by slapping parts together and serve it on a plate.
They took alot of time to not only perfect the ek9 but to make the car work in precision.in sync.balanced.
I had alot of other choices of cars I wanted to get aswell, down here in Australia we have the DC5s aka type s with leather interior and a little bit extra hp (k20az) it was a nice car to drive and was certainly a quick car (better then the dc5r) but I didn't like how Honda refined this car, too quiet, no thrills, no bangs and whistles, It wasn't a car anymore, it was like driving a merc or BMW.
So I went and picked up a kay9 and never thought twice about selling it, because it's the first car I've ever driven out of all the hundreds of cars I've driven that is driver orientated and driver focused. I never felt such a thrill out of a 14 year old car, it's raw,rough and does what a car should.
Sorry about the grammar, stupid iPhone
Kenny