Things that would improve HD

[captain howdy]

1) stop the host changing speed setting in existing rooms
This is just wrong! if you want to race at a higher speed quit the room and join another, only thing this does is freak out/annoy everyone else there.

3) add text chat to lobby
lots of times i want to say awesome race, or i'll start when we get another person, or whatever. some means of communication would be nice.

I agree with these. In the first case, it might be nice if there weren't a speed choice in the settings at all; rather, four different speed lobbies.

And being without a headset, I frequently try to send messages to people in between races. But the way it's set up in the XMB, it takes forever, especially if all you're using is a gamepad -- I recently bought a $10 USB keyboard because of this and it still takes longer to send a message than I would like it to. What's worse is bringing up the XMB while races are loading seems to bring out bugs every now and then. I would love a lobby text chat as well as text chat in-between races at the results screen.

EDIT:

I think if you do a barrel roll in zone mode it shouldn't take any ship health and give you zone points instead, make it a risk reward system like the speed pads.

This is a great idea. Or even let it take off ship health, just not as much -- a speed boost is enough of a risk... it seems weird for it to only exist in zone mode as a self-penalizing move.