If you have not flown one of those, it is a different aircraft. They have the higher clearance bigger or no fairing, sometimes a fixed pitch prop, and normal exhaust since the power flow is a pricey option. The flight school DA40’s, often are not tuned for higher speeds. If you have a non-flight school DA40 with the variable prop, high speed fairings and recent upgrades like tuned power-flow exhaust you are looking at 140-145 KTAS versus 165-170 KTAS. Ice will take both of them down, and neither are legal to fly in ice. Fly a Diamond or non-FIKI TKS Cirrus into ice, the plan is the same. I think your Pro/Con list is pretty accurate, although just to comment on a few issues. The future is GX000, no matter what type of airframe you move into. Cheap, stable, easier to hand fly and G1000 has better situational awareness compared to Avidyne. Neither plane is going to have great dispatch capability especially in the winter around the cascades. Going to Seattle on a regular basis… plan on having to deal with some nasty weather. 4 Adults 700 nm, going to be hard with either plane. Above that and you would want a better cross country platform. I suspect that your travel plans will change over time. But they have great autopilots, and that is how most people fly cross country aircraft in the real world. The controls are heavier, the spring tension gives an artificial feed back, the controls are more sensitive in pitch than roll, and the trim is overly sensitive. Having gone from a DA40 to an SR22, I never enjoyed hand flying the SR22. The DA40 with push rod controls, a center stick and better visibility, is just a true pilots plane. The DA40 is in a different league of operating costs. But you can fly an SR22 safely, just takes more training. A low time pilot with less than average skill is much safer in a DA40. High performance planes are less forgiving of poor technique but that can be mitigated with training. High performance and great for cross country flying. The SR22 is a different class of aircraft. If you try to climb full rich, not going to work up high. Many hundreds of hours flying a DA40 in the mountains, but you do have to lean the engine appropriate for density altitude. I flew gross in my DA40 much of the time, usually 10,500 to 12,500 never a performance issue. The poster that said he could not get 10,000 feet out of the DA40, was flying a DA40 that must have been having problems. The SR20 is more comfortable, but the DA40 is a better high hot short field performer than the SR20. In that case, kind of feel out what is more important to you. I am a true fan of the DA40, but I do agree that the comparison is more DA40 versus SR20.
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