Dont know if this is too high schoolish for you, but my buddy had an R32, I think 2004 or 2005. VW placed the price point higher on these because they wanted the high school crowd to go toward the GTI. But the AWD system is very stout, combo'ed with snow tires, I doubt any snow drift can stop it. I had a GTI with snow tires and I felt just as confident in its abilities as my 4runner. Granted, no extreme offroading, but for snow it was great. We lived on the tip of Lake Michigan in South Bend, IN, and got tons of snow at one time, he never got stuck with it, ever.
They are finally down to your price range used, and I NEVER had a problem with any of my 3 VW's, depsite them getting a bad wrap. The people who give them bad wraps buy the base level garbage and expect it to run like a champ forever. We all know this is not true of carmakers anymore, but those people don't...