One of the benefits of this forum (and fora in general) is that you give yourself the opportunity to shortcut your own experience by weighing the experiences of others and putting them into your own context. In other words, if 90 people post 'me too' to a thread that says "I Think The Magnum is a fun car" with no dissenters then you have learned something.

I have quite a laundry list of modifications to my RT.

[ul][*] I put a K&N Typhoon on the first night I had the car home. The unit got here before the car did. The decision was made while waiting for the car to arrive, after seeing photos (in another forum) of the interior of the stock intake system, and reports of others on what they got out of the K&N unit (a few more HP, sound improvement, which is purely fun-factor and subjective). Countering this were tests that showed the stock system to be very good at putting in cold air. I decided on the Typhoon in the end and subsequent road tests have proven it better at bringing in ambient air.[*] The next day I went down to the local muffler guru and, on exit, had removed the 'suitcase' unit and replaced it with a well-heeled (thanks to leaving the resonators on) pair of Flowmaster 40's. Nice and quiet unless at WOT, which is when I want it loud. Again, fun factor. The stock exhaust makes what can only be described as an embarrassing bleat. Plus in another forum the muffler was cut open and photo'd... its no anything I would want to run in a performance auto. Loaded with either fiberglas or steel wool (I forget which) to do its muffling. Plus the mufflers (alone) added maybe 10-13 hp again.[*] I put Eibach springs onto the car. Not to lower it for looks, but to lower its center of gravity so it could take corners, which the stock vehicle imho can't do well at all. A Pro-Kit refit melts 1000 lbs at least off this car in spirited mountain driving. For the superhighway-cruiser kind of guy, this mod would be a big mistake, but I drive many different kinds of roads and want to do it well. Here again I relied on discussion with forum members to help me determine what the effect would be on the car.[*] What I wound up doing with the lighting system constitutes a novella (and is one on my web site, where I wrote up the light bulb saga. Here again I shortcutted a long process with forum posts and information sharing. I had never even heard of HIR bulbs until I read about them in a forum (although I didn't need to read a forum to know the stock lights *sucked*).[*] by no means was what I have done to the car strictly for performance. Aesthetics play a role, and those are entirely subjective. For me the big one was wheels. I wanted chrome wheels for this car and I bought them almost immediately; selling the alloys afterwards. I did stick to 18" wheels (18x8) and specifically didn't want anything bigger, but wheel size pro's and cons would take up a whole other thread. Anyway I found the wheels I wanted after seeing them on two other Magnums ... in forum posts.
[/ul]

You get my point I'm sure. Of course you do your own thinking, take everything with a grain of salt etc. but the point of a forum is info interchange. You are no longer doing your own R&D in a relative vacuum.

True there is some bickering. I was in a doozie only a week ago. Just like on the streets, some people have abrasive personalities. You deal with it here as you do there, although in this sort of medium the tolerance factor for wieners is pretty close to zero.

And it may just be that you are the sort of person that is going to be an arch-conservative by the standards applied here. People who take the time to frequent online fora also tend to be enthusiast-owners. Extremists on the scale. If you aren't then thats fine, but don't expect the forum to cater so much to your point of view. You'll still learn things, but don't be surprised if much of the discussion is of no interest to you.