My wife has one, r53 with a manual trans. Fun car to drive, short wheelbase and zippy as hell. I understand you can put different pulleys on the SC and do a few other mods if you are that way inclined.
I don’t actually find it that bad to work on - once you know how to put it into ‘service mode’ (bumper etc comes off) it’s no worse than any of my previous Toyota/Mazda cars. Better in some ways.
You will have oil leaks to fix, I’ve done all the common ones in ours (various seals and orings). We have had some issues, throttle body went, I had to do the clutch when the throwout bearing exploded and serviced the supercharger, water pump, hoses and all the front end ball joints and bushings etc. at the same time. First time I’ve done most of that on a car and was done on jack stands in my driveway over the course of a weekend and a week or so of evenings.
I don’t regret buying one even though I’ve done a fair bit of work and thrown some money at parts, but perhaps would feel different if I had to pay a mechanic to do it. Watch out for noisy timing chains as that doesn’t look like nice if it goes, I replaced the tensioner on ours as preventative maintenance.
This YouTube channel playlist has been extremely useful. There is a video in there on common faults/checking one out for purchase too from memory.