Getting a New/Used Car vs Lease Buyout

I have a 2023 Subaru WRX. I make about $2.6k bi weekly, after taxes. My lease contract has the residual value of my car at a little over $32,000. If I want to keep my current car, I would have to finance the buyout at the bank rate, which I was told by the dealership is around 8%, which would put me somewhere around $350–400 biweekly, which is too high for me. My payments before were about $260 bi weekly, which is slightly higher than I'd like, but very manageable.

One alternative I considered is getting a new manual WRX, likely one trim below mine. I was quoted around 4.49% financing, but I was told I would qualify for a 1% loyalty rate reduction because of my previous lease. The payments would be between 750-800 per month for 5 years with 10k down, which really doesn't seem worth it to me, but it would be nice to have a new car that I would keep at the end of the term.

What I’m struggling with is whether or not I should get a new car or look for a completely different car altogether. I've grown to like the WRX, especially the one I currently have, but switching to the bank rate is like double what the rate I'm paying would be. I also know pretty much the entire service history of the current car I have and have spent a lot of time with it, which is whats making it hard to switch to a used car, but I don't think the interest rates would be that much better either

Another reason why I'm so conflicted is because before getting my WRX, I really hated driving. The only cars I had driven were my dad's Rav4, my drving instructors Toyota Matrix, and my friends Sentra. They get the job done, but I find those to be boring cars. I really didn't like driving until I got my WRX, I find it to be much more engaging and enjoyable. The tech and safety features are pretty nice too.

Some more details about my financial situation. I've got about 10k in my TFSA, 2k in my RRSP, and about 4k in savings right now.

Any advice would be appreciated. I really dont want to buy a cheap shitbox, but its starting to feel like the only financially smart decision