Larry: My "resent" comment was only a joke.

Performance: Although it certainly does not have the power level of a 3.0l or 3.2l, I would not think the 2.6l would be driven in a gentler manner because of its lower performance. To the contrary, in some cases, (im my case) they may be driven harder, just to keep-up with the Jones and the Jonhs driving higher performance cars.
When I bought the car 11 years ago, it was a bullet as compared to my 1990 Honda Civic.