You know what? I'm actually really happy that the differences between all the ships in HD are so subtle that every ship can kick ass on the record tables. This way, everyone gets to fly their favorite craft and can still be competitive! Sure, it would be nice to have a beast like the 2097 Qirex, that is really tough to control but insanely fast when mastered. But then, nobody could be in the records with other ships. I prefer it as it stands now.

One could argue that it makes the whole idea of having different ships at all pointless, but as was said before: variety is the spice of AG-racing.

And to the OP: be aware that in a game like wipEout, where most of the people who are truly dedicated to it mostly stick to a team and wouldn't even change their allegiance even if their ship was inferior, it's not exactly a good idea to create a thread with a title along the lines of 'hey, isn't team so-and-so completely pointless?' - it's bound to create some very biased responses.

There is no pointless. The more, the merrier