Interesting question.

I personally think no not as much, for several reasons:

- The YB engine was a stroke of luck/genius and was created for race, not road. This means it was very tuneable (although it took a few years for Joe public to start exploring it's full potential). This as well as the engines rawness is the charm that has kept people entertained for over a decade. It is ulikely that this will be repeated with such success, especially with the new regulations that manufacturers now have to meet.

- The main (only?) rival for the Sapphire Cosworth was the E30 BMW M3, this is certainly not the case anymore because of the cars you have listed. Back then the difference between your average car and the Cosworth was much like a driver going from cross-ply to Radial tyres - a big step!
Nowadays the level has been raised and the choices much more available to the masses, so the difference is more down to personal taste as the machines are personal taste.
SO does the driver choose Eagle F1's or Bridgestone SO-2's? - It'll be down to personal taste.

What Fords do have though is a massive cult following. The emotion behind the RS emblem is much stornger than that of the others - and thus the craving. Whilst the Evo and Scooby I'm sure are awesome pieces of kit, there is just that little bit of something missing. This I think is where Ford have the opportunity to come in and trump the competition.

The problem has been that Ford have done a storming job with the Fiesta, Focus and Modeo but have never fully exploited their own work by producing the all singing and dancing performance 'halo' model, the model that all purchasers aspire to.

The Puma, KA Sport, ST170, Focus RS and ST220 are all fabulous cars - but they are still too lukewarm to become a halo model, but they have all been successes (well, maybe not so much the Puma but that was a different issue). There is no performance model in the Fiesta range and so it makes sense that the ST is finally arriving - what is even more exciting is the Fiesta RS! As they are making a Fiesta Rally car, there would be no point stopping at producing an ST especially given the public reaction to their last few performance vehicles.;)

The futures rosey and very exciting!