I had a 996 and now have a 997S I can say that the 997 is a better handling car on all road surfaces.

Track miles driven in the 997 with PASM this year at minimum have been 900+.
I have not experienced any strange handling chacteristics that others talk about nor the hoping bobing front end mentioned in another thread.
PASM on or off the car handles quite well, and in harder high speed driving a harder shock algorithm automaticly kicks in when the normal mode is selected.