I bought an 08 Nissan 350z Touring ed. and I LOVE IT! For winter and getting groceries I drive an old beater, 1994 Toyota Tercel. If I didn't have the Tercel, I'd probably rent a car or something if I needed to pick up friends, or buy furnature.
As for snow driving I find the 3 most important elements are as follows.
-Driving ability
-Balance/Center of gravity of the vehicle
-Tires
I had a Nissan NX2000 that did wonderful in the snow. Thats 200hp in the snow. I never got stuck or slid off the road. When I sold the NX, I took the wheels (and tires) off of it, and put them onto the Toyota Tercel and the thing does HORRIBLE in the snow. I believe this is because it is not as well balanced as a Nissan NX (sports car).
"You've probably heard it a thousand times, but the best code is the code that you don't have to write."
I think this guy is a chump. Writing things yourself is a luxury. If you have the time to spend on writing it yourself, you have more of a chance understand what is going on. Also some software is still written for a specific task (as in, not to be everything to everyone). If this is the case, and you have the luxury to write everything yourself you will know how your software works, AND you can optimize for a specific task, rather than being general enough to be used elsewhere.
It is also my opinion that it is good to know as much as possible about what you work with. So to take on libraries just so you can skimp out makes you a tad ignorant.
"Refuse to buy them more than one monitor."
I have coded entire projects on an Everex Cloudbook, with a single 7" screen. If lack of dual monitors kills your productivity then you probably suck at coding. ;)
"Buy cheap hardware."
Again, entire projects, Cloudbook, $300. This guy is just a winy chump haha!