I've been obsessing over this car for the good part of the last 6 months. I'm in need of a new daily driver and since then this seems to fit the bill. Have you visited ft86club.com? There's a ton of information on there.
Basically, pricing speculations are all over the place right now from being 23k-29k'ish. There's no official pricing out as of today.
Evidently, the BRZ will tend to understeer a bit more than the FRS/FT86. The basic car in terms of suspension components, drivetrain will be the same. However, they each tuned their respective cars independently. The BRZ will ship with slightly higher end amenities (i.e. some alcantera, navigation, push button start, seat warmers, etc). The FRS will be slightly more spartan in comparison but given the full assortment of TRD parts already released the price can go up quickly if optioned proportionately.
I saw the car in person when Greddy did an unannounced sneak peak at our local Cars & Coffee. It's a hot little car in person. It doesn't look as small as it is. It's rather a good looking car I think.
I'm sold on the car. It's just pricing for me at this point. Anything over $25k and i'm out. As well engineered as this car, there are simply more entertaining options >$25k.
Also, yes... Toyota has announced a "bare bones" model but i'm not sure if that's going to be available for the US market. We'll have to wait and see. Toyota has announced though that they will offer different types of differentials which is a really really interesting direction for the company.