I was talking to TSR about that car. Basically they were left with a blank cheque but very liitle time. The mods were based around a 1.9 rebore which makes most of it's power at the top end. The thing was built to do 8000rpm + because it needed to.
They had advised 5th Gear that a 2.0 would have made better power with more low down grunt, but due to time were not able to do that. The compramise was to build the 1.9 screamer, but the reality was that it did not make a very good road car.
I've just bought a 16V and it's taken me ages to learn how to drive it. My last Mk2 was an 8V and my daily is a Passat V6 TDI.