diagnosis was pretty straight forward:
Repetitive P0301's after fixing the usual symptoms I read on here (plugs, coil packs, injectors)
Read this thread.
Compression check showed Cyl 1 @ 60psi where the others were consistent at 135-140 - at that point I knew I had to pull the engine, so we did, pulled the heads and Exhaust valve on cyl 1 was shot.
Taking advantage of the whole situation - while I'm out of my car for a few weeks I'm cleaning up the intake manifold, replaced the inlet with a perrin unit, and am going to freshen up all gaskets / timing assy, etc.
Total bill thus far is just a touch under 2k - head work was $1190, gaskets from Subaru (any we touched) was just under $340 with a 25% discount (friend has an account there and my car is at his place), timing assy was $195 from amazon (go gates!).
My car's been paid off since 2008, has 182k miles, so I figure she doesn't owe me a dime. I've been a ford guy for all my projects, but honestly my Subaru has been the most pleasurable car to drive. Just - does - it - all - right.
I haven't checked this thread recently to see if you've done a compression or leakdown, but if you haven't, I'd do that next. Researching here and other places, these cars are prone to burn exh. valves in cyl 1 and 4.
Once I recover financially I'm going to do a bit of a custom tune to help make the system safer than stock, while probably adding a little bit of power. Good to have friends in the right places, I guess.
All that being said I should probably sell the set of injectors I bought for diagnosis.