Kinda what I was thinking.
The noticeable performance gains may be small, but the effect on the internals of the engine is profound. Higher octane is far less prone to detonation, and just all around better for the motor. Even if you don't use C16 or some other race gas, 90 octane is a swill. Fuggin' horrible. I'd love to have 97 octane stuff where I am.