It's for situations described here that I like to think there was a legitimate benefit in picking up a loud exhaust - loud exhausts save lives
Getting back on topic - the car is low and rather quiet from the factory - before I changed my exhaust it used to make me nervous passing people in their blind spot as I had several close-calls where people just started to merge into me, seemingly totally unaware that the car was there, and then there is the fact that many people simply do not give proper attention to driving no matter what vehicle you're driving.