This is exactly what Ford's turbo 2.3l motor produced (found in the SVO, TC, and Merkur). Please try to argue your case to people putting well over 400hp to the ground on the stock bottom end.

But, I do agree that this motor in the Ion may not have much potential. It all depends on what GM decided to put in the bottom end. You can do the usual roots blower tricks (smaller pulley, larger injectors, tuning, etc), but you may be limited by the internals and perhaps by the size of the blower itself. It should be interesting to see what the aftermarket comes out with for this motor, and how this motor responds to modifications. It is just nice to see the US car manufacturers finally giving the sport compact genre a shot (SRT-4, SVT Focus, blown Ion/Cobalt).