I'm going to be pretty shocked if the torque curve on these doesn't crush the 2.8 I4. What are these again? 3.4l V6s with current tech vs a Yamaha that's notorious for being an underpowered 200, designed how many years ago?
These won't be THE answer because nothing ever is, but I think they're going to stomp the Yamaha in terms of performance. Time will tell, though, on both the performance and the reliability.
Seems apparent that they're after the repower market with the dual options for DTS and mechanical controls. I was in the shop today with my merc guy (who is also a close friend) and he's losing his mind over them. I think one would be killer on my old DE206 but it's a lot of dough.
Looks like Merc is betting heavily on them, anyway.