I wonder why people here in Malaysia are so obsessed or persistent with AWD, it consume more fuel and cost more in term of maintenance.

As recalled, the reason why my dad have to sold his 3rd gen Honda CRV is because the AWD differential located at the back axel is malfunctioned, causes gear slipped and others problem.

People perception upon all wheel drive are handling, the superior grip during initial acceleration and grip during cornering. But all these are pointless to this gen CRV, this car is not meant for cornering, isn't it? I bet you won't feel any different if you test drive the 2 wheel and 4 wheel back to back. 4 wheel one also won't out run 2 wheel while off the line.

All wheel drive is important at country which snowing during winter time. Here in Malaysia don't snow, also, most people uses truck for off road instead of Compact SUV.

So the choice is basically yours.
IMHO, Honda sensing is way more important than AWD, as tested, it work flawlessly.

Cheer.

Yes, it does help in wet condition, only when you're doing 150-200 km/h on freeway without turn on your tracking control.
Would you ask yourself: should I hit the highway when it is pouring outside and my car only move with its front wheel?
When the car slipped and about to loss tracking, there are tracking control (Honda called Vehicle Stability Assist) come into play to bring the car back on track by applying the brakes to any individual wheel or adjusting the engine output.
This gen CRV also come with Agile Handling Assist (AHA), which basically identical to Mazda G-vectoring Control, it reduce engine torque and apply brake pressure on individual wheel during cornering.
So in wet condition, tracking or stability control is more important than all wheel drive.

Also, the video you shown demonstrate the AWD tracking with hot-hatch is actually inappropriate here.
Please refer to this link, this is how people test the ALL WHEEL DRIVE on SUV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B0VpJGdz40

The purpose of AWD in a hot hatch is differ from SUV because you don't speed and corner with your SUV.
Let's make thing simple, the purpose of AWD in SUV pull or push you out when you're stuck in snow or mud. It give you extra traction during off road condition, when one wheel is stuck, it uses another wheel for traction.

So now ask yourself, do you need AWD? 

Nope, weekend family car. But im partial environmental responsible person (since suv is not fuel efficient car 😂), prefer eco friendly car than less fuel efficient car. I still love my old honda jazz hybrid cbu

Compare to my previous NA 1.8 car, I do notice CRV turbo has much more efficient cooling as she seems to require slighly more distance for the engine to reach working temperature. Don't get me wrong, usually working temperature will be reached in around 2km of continuous driving, in the morning. I do notice idling for long time doesn't really help in warming up.