[Perfectlap]

another advantage of doing the IMS, and sooner than later, you'll stand a better chance of being able to re-use the flywheel. That added like $700 to the cost of my clutch/IMS/RMS swap bringing it close to $3K. Pricey.

As for putting it off because used m96 engines may be getting cheaper. I wonder about that. Older Boxsters and Carreras are coming down in price to the point where many will be using them for daily driving after the cars spent nearly the first decade of their existing as garage queens. I tend to think that will shake out the bad apples at an accelerated rate. Which in turn could increase the demand for engines. However, this might be mitigated by the number of cars that are totaled (frontal impacts where the engine is immediately sold) as a consequence of more Boxster/Carrera miles being driven.

Either way you are replacing a question with another question when you replace a grenaded engine. And you are doing so at a premium over simply swapping the IMS. I don't have a reason to believe that a well maintained m96 engine will not last well past your needs.