Richbot
Wow! Impressive you're the original owner!
I wonder how many there are of you here?
Re plastic, yea good point, mine's a 2008 year car (81k miles) and I broke a chunk of plastic getting one of the coils out! Had to seal the gap with silicone sealant, lol. Still works ok though.
Next time I pull them though I'm going use a cord and a lever to remove them, hopefully spreading the load will prevent any more damage!
Re plugs, interesting, my plugs have done about 20k miles, and I've noticed it somewhat flutters/splutters on giving it a small to modest blip of throttle from idle when stone cold to 'luke warm'. I've also noticed it getting a bit worse over the past couple of k miles or so (low annual mileage).
Perhaps my plugs are starting to go 'off'......
[edit, it's not the slightly damaged coil as it doesn't seem to be affecting just 1 cylinder and also it didn't happen immediately after the coil damage, and it's fine from warm to fully warmed up/hot).