My altezza has the red line at 7750rpm and the clock goes to 9000rpm. Never seen any other altezza different. Mines a manual RS200 but I think the tiptronic RS200 is the same. It might have been an AS200 you were looking at as these are the same as the Is200 with the 1gfe engine and they dont rev as high.
As for the vvti 'kick' in. Its not like a vtec as it does not just kick in but it does change to aggressive around 5000rpm on the RS200 altezza and you can definatly feel the power after that point.