[stetrain]

For me the justification of AWD is for better road handling and acceleration.

Both my FWD CR-V and previous RWD pickup would be prone to wheel slip/spin when trying to turn out into traffic and accelerate, moreso with damp roads. A friend has an Audi with their Quattro AWD system and it drives like it's on rails in those situations.

As the adage goes though all cars already have four wheel brakes, so AWD isn't going to help you if you're going too fast or not leaving proper following distance for the conditions.

 

[stetrain]

And I seriously doubt that an AWD Passport will accelerate faster or even handle better than FWD in normal driving on paved roads.

It's the Acura SH-AWD system that applies torque vectoring during cornering, it definitely has an effect on paved roads.

Notice the turns while accelerating starting around 23m, my CR-V would have been spinning the front wheels all over for that maneuver. I haven't made a firm decision yet but I definitely want to test drive the AWD version and see if it makes a big of a difference on-road as I've heard claimed in many Pilot and Ridgeline reviews.

Also I agree that it's really not necessary, just seems like a nice-to-have capability that you usually only find on luxury segment vehicles.