in seattle that means sunrise at 9 and sunset at 515 in a place that's already hella dark. No thank you.

Sunset at 4:15 would kill my will to live. That's so depressing.

One of the reasons why I left the UK to move to Australia: an escape from months of cloudy gloom.

It really makes the winter a lot less tiresome when you can walk to and from work under bright blue skies and feel the warmth of the Sun.

waking up 2 hours before sunrise is painful

If you're waking up before sunrise, it's going to feel about the same no matter when sunrise is.

And you'll have sun at lunch time except in extreme cases.

So when days are short, mid-morning and afternoon are where the difference is really made. And I'd much rather have sunlight when I go home than have more mid-morning already-at-work/school sunlight.

Sun in winter sounds nice

Waking up is always painful

Why the hell are you waking up so early then? The last time I intentionally woke up before sunrise was years ago at 4:30am at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to start the hike back up before it got too hot.

Because sunrise is already at like 8 in the dead of winter. Pretty hard to wake up after that if you work at 9

People in those latitudes are just screwed either way then. There's literally not enough daylight to go around in winter. If you're not waking up in the dark then the Sun is setting when you're only halfway through your work day.

One could always move further south.

It's a marvelous solution. But summers are better up north :)