i owned my evo for 2 and a half years now. i bought it already landed in Vancouver. original Canadian owner bought it from a japan dealer so it wasn't an auction car. cosmetically it is not perfect. mechanically no issues other than maintenance stuff. had to replace the rad since it started leaking (250 mishimoto replacement).
took it to the track last summer for a little bit of fun drag racing. i was able to do a few launches on the clutch it had. couple months later the clutch started to slip so i changed it up to a stage 3 clutch. that should be able to take some more abuse at the drags
had all the brake pads replaced (same pads as eclipses) and calipers cleaned and rebuilt because it started seizing in the rears. bot at 98k now its got 140k on the odometer and the timing belt started making some noise. i will be doing the whole timing belt service with water pump etc. i also recently tuned it with an evo 5 ecu making decent pAH!
so far so good. if the OP is still looking, i recommend waiting for the evo 7's to pass the 15 year rule. but that's just me