Gears

Well it all depends on what you care about. I have the 3.08's and I've never had an issue since my car is a stick (as yours appears to be). The final drive ratio is completely in my control, and with a turbo it's actually a benefit. If you do a lot of highway driving or cruising gears will have a negative effect. They're really much more beneficial on an automatic.

With that all said, if you were trying to go a little more crazy with gearing, 3.73's would be the tallest I'd go with on a street car. 3.31's will give you about 7.5% more revs per MPH than the 3.08's. 3.55's will give you about 15% more revs per MPH than 3.08's. On a stick you probably wouldn't find anything in ET's since you can just slip the clutch and leave it in a lower gear a little longer and get the same or larger effect. Or heck, get some lower profile tires.

With that all said again, $40 bucks is pretty cheap. If you DIY then you'll see some improvement and it may be worth it to you. Though a set of 3.55's is only going to set you back about $150 (either way you'll want an install kit with shims / bearings / etc. so about another $80) so if that's what you really want, get what you really want. If you pay for labor, then the difference between the $40 and $150 will even more quickly disappear.

So I realize this was thoroughly unhelpful. Remembering my car before I went forced induction, my problem was never the gear ratio. I could spin the tires all day long (plenty of torque) with the 3.08's and have complete control of rev-range with the stick. Where the car fell apart was its inability to breathe above 4000rpm, which gears will only make worse. I know everyone recommends gears as the first performance upgrade, I don't really agree with a manual trans.