Pete,

I have 9.9hp on mine. It pushes along pretty good when i'm by myself. It's a little slower with someone else in the boat obviously. I have no idea what speed i'm going, but let me just say that I can make it from the launch ramp to the very back of Lopez arm in about seven minutes. That's going through two 5mph no wake zones too. I guess that's good :). The bass boats that fly past me are probably doing it in about three or four minutes.

As far as cutting through chop... I've had this thing out during the winter when the rain and wind was so hard you could barely see. Just cinch your hood up tight and go full throttle into it. Doesn't bother me a bit. Honestly, it's never been a problem around here. It's not like our lakes get rollers or anything.

Ken,

I got mine from Galey's Marine in Bakersfield. I called about a million different dealers and ended up going with them. If I decide to trade up, i'll probably go back to them. They were cool.
There's a couple places in Paso Robles that seemed good also. None of them had anything in stock, so it was a longer wait to get one shipped.