This is a catch-up vehicle for Mitsubishi. They're not showing Mazda/Honda/Subaru anything new except for the CVT (Caliber-ish?). Like the previous Lancer, I think that Subaru only needs to worry about the Evo. There's also a lot of "mystery" around the 2008 Imprezas so we'll see how things go down in 2008.
Ralliart, rumor has it in mid '08, will go head to head w/WRX. My guess is it will be $6-8,000 cheaper, base model comparisons.
Did you factor in the fact that all Imprezas are AWD?