Will that be Jeff Chalker?? he uses this board here occasionally - username jeffchalker - 'spoken' to him a few times by email, seems like a straight guy..
If you are going to limit the cossie to 280bhp or so, Then I'd be looking carefully at STi's personally, at those sort of prices... performance probably isn't hugely different, but as a standard car the Sti will have better handling... and possibly aircon

Beware of prices in autotrader as an indication though - may look cheap, but you would be lucky if you find many nice ones at 'bargain' prices. Good reliable place to buy good cossies here is http://www.automotiveunlimited.co.uk/ he always seems to be able to find really nice cars, not cheap but probably one of the most reliable sources if you need someone to find you one.