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Shops are there to sell you things and the IMS update is one of them.
You have an IMS that has made it this far. That is a plus.
Your IMS is probably the best of the three Porsche designs (unless it is a Porsche replacement engine and then you can't tell until the transmission is off). That is two probable pluses.
There are no reliable statistics on the failure rate of your IMS's probable first generation design. Anyone who gives you some stats is guessing based on the stats from a lawsuit that involved a different IMS design.
If the failure rate were as high as the second version, the lawyers would have also done a class action for the original (just like they did for the single row second version) and we'd have statistics.
Does it make sense to put that much money into a car worth maybe $8k when there are 28 other known modes of failure? Why aren't you addressing those first when their failures far outnumber the failures of this IMS design? What if you totaled the car tomorrow?
If I were putting $10-24k into the engine to upgrade all the major failure points I'd definitely be replacing the IMS. But to do it when you don't need the transmission removed for another reason (clutch, etc) seems to me to be overkill.
Which is not to say it couldn't fail tomorrow. But you can say that about every part. I have two recalls on my two Toyotas right now. No car is immune from random failures or ones that show up 10 years later.
Only you can decide what the right thing for you to do is. You have a different risk tolerance than I do ... guaranteed.
(I've followed this issue for 7+ years on at least 7 forums on 3 continents, talked to several of the developers of the replacements. I owned a '99 and a 01S. I didn't.)
Use the right oil, change it frequently (much more frequently than the Porsche recommendations) and drive it so it gets warm for a good while as frequently as you can.
You know more about this car and its engine that you would about most cars because it is such a great car and we car nuts love it so.
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