[Ray]

AWD, while being "good in the snow for the freak storms you get" will be not used 99.5% of the time and only consume fuel for every other event. Yes, you can launch like a MOFO, but trust me, i've driven FWD, AWD, and RWD in the snow and except for initial accel, AWD doesn't have much on FWD.

Good tires on ANY car is the make or brake. I can dance circles in the snow around AWD cars in my old focus with snow shoes on, provided the AWDs were on all seasons.