Just about to reach a year with the car, so within a few months of having it I managed to score a set of barely used winter tires (Blizzaks) on 16-inch steel wheels from a user on this forum, because I could not afford to get caught in the snow without snow tires. The stock tires cannot handle anything near or below freezing temps. I'm sure southern New England winters can't really hold a candle to anything MN deals with, but I had no issues at all driving my car in the winter and in snowstorms, and I attribute that just as much to having proper tires for the season as I do to being capable of not driving like an idiot when there's snow on the ground. I had the tires on the car through most of April before I went back to the stock barely-summer tires, maybe put around 6k miles on top of the 4k they already had on them, and they've still got plenty of life left. Having experienced what I did, I will never go another winter without snow tires on any car I own again, no matter the drive wheel setup.
I really had no trouble driving the roads and highways around here with snow on the ground. Just leave the traction control nannies on and take your time. The car never did anything untoward while I drove it in snow so long as I wasn't trying to mash my foot to the floor on either pedal or being otherwise not smooth with any of the controls. I occasionally got a little wheelspin on a few starts from stop lights/signs, but nothing different from any other car I've driven other than it being rear wheelspin, and the nannies kept it all in check. The car never once felt out of control or sketchy, and I can't say that for cars I've had in the past.
The car still handles great on snow tires, and don't be surprised to find yourself crawling past SUVs that think they're invincible because of AWD, or people in cars who are moving like snails because they can't get any traction on their all-seasons and think they're going to die. As @
Tcoat likes to say, it's a little tank when it's on snow tires, and my winter storms are probably what they'd call a dusting up where he is. I'm actually looking forward to putting the tires back on the car with winter getting here soon...and I don't like winter.
40-50 years ago most of the cars on the road were front-heavy RWD land yachts on skinny tires. People managed to not kill themselves on a daily basis back then during winter, so the argument for FWD and AWD being so much better and RWD being so dangerous in snow doesn't really fly for me in all cases. How you equip any car for winter driving says more to me about how good a car it is to drive in the winter as what wheels are driven on it. All-seasons really don't cut it, and people are just getting away with rolling the dice when they have them on AWD cars and figure it's enough in a place that gets more than a light coat of snow on the ground. I used to work with a guy who daily drove an SVT Cobra year-round. Never drove anything else, and did this for years. Snow tires went on all 4 corners in winter, and he never once got stuck or had a mishap with a commute that was at least a half hour in good weather, likely more, with plenty of time spent on the highway. Conversely, I have a friend who ended up replacing her worn out tires with really poor all-season tires on her Crosstrek, with an hour to hour and-a-half commute, and she could barely drive the car anymore in even light snow. She just had no traction anymore. I would consider both of these people to be excellent drivers, so it really comes down to the car's equipment here.
Now, ice is ice, and there isn't a normal road vehicle out there that can defeat physics when it comes to ice. The way I see it, route planning has just as much importance as what tires you have or which wheels are driven on your car. If you know there's some massive hill on your commute (there's one on mine), and there's a different way you can go that's less risky and avoids that hill, that's what you do so you don't have to worry about not making it up the hill, or someone in front of you not making it and sliding back into you. If there are places where you know ice tends to build up, you pay extra attention in those areas and take your time, or find another route. It's easy to get overconfident in any car, so as I said before, it's just as much about your own discipline in bad weather as it is about what kind of car you're driving, but in my experience this car was never a handful.
All that said, don't let the drive wheels deter you from buying the car if you want it, unless it's a matter of lack of familiarity with RWD, in which case I would say buy the car in the spring to give yourself most of a year's time to get used to it before you equip it for winter driving. Snow tires simply are a must, and you'll find the car drives just fine in snow because of them.
Now as far as the non-weather related aspects of your decision, that's really entirely up to you and your wants/needs. As a single person, I have no need for a ton of cargo space, more than 2 doors, and any sort of nominal towing capacity. For me, it works out great. If I ever needed to move something or haul something large (not a frequent occurrence for me personally, YMMV) I can borrow or rent a truck for the day. The car suits me and my daily driving needs just fine. I've actually been able to fit a lot of stuff I didn't think I could into a car so small, and there's even a thread on here of people showing just how much they can actually pack into this car. It's pretty usable if you don't need room to play taxi or haul around a bunch of crap on a regular basis.