Hey man!
I went with the OEM shifter because I have had a lot of experience with short shifters on different cars. I've personally experienced problems with some and had no problems with others.
I hear those experiences from many other drivers of those same cars that I've dealt with. I've never heard of any aftermarket shifter that hasn't had issues for some people, one way or another. I can't just blame user error or installation errors on all of those problems because I have that personal experience that shows that anyone can have issues with short shifters.
I wasn't even going to bother putting one on this car because of all that. I haven't heard anything really bad about the stock Porsche shifter and the fact that they change out the entire assembly rather than just the lever was a winner for me. That showed me that Porsche understood how unreliable it is to rebuild the stock assembly with a new lever and I could be fairly assured that I wouldn't have too much of an issue with this new one.
Also, it's a stock part installed by a dealer so if I DO end up with problems, it's not my problem. And if for some reason I end up hating it, I can always reverse things back to normal.
But yes, the price is not so good. Ends up costing about $400 for the part and about $300 for labor. I think I ended up paying about $750 or so at Pioneer Centres. But one has to think of the risk of screwing up an aftermarket short shifter install and the costs associated with that--you could easily spend more time and money dicking around in the aftermarket. If an OEM solution exists for a not TOO ludicrous an amount, why not use it?
One could easily save some money and do the install oneself if one were mechanically inclined, but I made a promise to myself when I bought this car that I wouldn't **************** with it on my own, no matter how simple I thought things would be. That path leads to turbos and I don't trust myself anymore.
But seriously, it's just a matter of removing the center console, deattaching the shift cables, unbolting the old shifter assembly, bolting in the new one, reattaching the cables, and reinstalling the center console. A ratchet, some sockets, and a couple screwdrivers (maybe some torx drivers? Don't know if Porsche is like that or not). $400 versus $100 or so, it's almost a no-brainer to me.