When people talk about favoring torque over horsepower, what they really mean is that they favor low-RPM horsepower over high-RPM horsepower.

Getting into arguments about the semantic definition of torque (rotational force) versus horsepower (work done per unit time) is pointless. Because that's not what matters.

Note that at any particular engine speed, torque and horsepower are locked together by a constant ratio. If you improve your engine's torque by 10% at 3000 RPM, you've improved its horsepower by 10% at 3000 RPM.

So they only time it makes sense to talk about trading off torque for horsepower is when you are talking about different engine speeds. The torque peak always comes at a lower speed than the horsepower peak. So if you are increasing peak torque at the expense of peak HP, you are gaining low-RPM power at the expense of high-RPM power. That is what people think of as a motor with good torque -- a motor with good low-RPM power.

Now for comparing two cars, like the Evo vs. STi. Comparing the peak engine torque, or even the torque curves, doesn't tell you the whole story. The transmission drive ratios need to be considered. In particular, the stock STi has taller gearing than the Evo plus smaller diameter tires, so at a particular speed in a particular gear, the STi's engine is rotating faster. This actually plays a big part in making the STi feel more responsive at low RPMs -- because the RPMs aren't quite as low as they are on the Evo.

 

Well stated.
We always forget that torque is the only thing that can be measured, usually with a dyno or some
other type of accelerometer.

HP is just math. It's another way to express that rotational force when the rotation is not zero anymore.
Sort of a way to measure how efficiently the work is being done over a given operating range.

Having two measures of how that work is being done over a given operating range gives us a way to do comparisons.