Ben,
You're absolutely right, but the new high-flow cats are pretty free-flowing, and having the heated element in the exhaust stream helps evacuate the gasses better. Sounds nuts, but the dyno tests were carried out on a few different instances.
Then again, Saabs are odd anyway!
i have an 05 cavalier and w/in 20,000 miles i managed to sumhow blow my cat up...no big deal wanted a hi-flo neways-to go along w/the 2.25 piped from beind the cat neways w/the Borla muffler-well a week after we got the cat on....cel came on...its an OBD-II Magnaflow cat......i reset the comp by disconnectin the batt the other nite and it went away but the mech still hooked the scanner up to it and we went for a drive down the street and he was lookin at it and said that the o2 behind the cat isnt sending a signal......to him sounded like the o2 is bad-any thoughts???
"I can't believe you are doin all this to a Cavalier!"-Everybody Else
"Hey-at least its not a damn civic!!"-ME
if your not getting signal then its most likely a bad sensor, broken wire, etc