I think we should keep it simple weapon wise, I like the weapon ideas so far but the more complex the weapon system the more chance of bugs and glitches and so on, the gravity bomb in fusion was horrible for that for example, sometimes it just shut off the ag generator in the craft within it's area of effect but sometimes a ship would be pulled towards it violently instead ending up in a wall somewhere it was especially unpredictable in loops and on mandarshee if I remember correctly

by the way the reflective shield in wo3 was called simply reflector

also for weapon systems

it could be an idea of instead of having pickups you get to choose what... say 5 different pickups you carry before a race and you get a set number of all these depending on which you've chosen. call it activation slots on the ship where you have say 20 and each pick up takes up a set amount of activation slots. say for example that a quake takes up 7 activation slots, a turbo 5 a shield 2 and a canon 1 so you could have for example: "2 turbos, 1 quake 1 shield and 1 canon" in your craft before a race and you have to be careful with how you use your stuff. that way the weapons become less random and the game more strategic. If these would be used to replenish energy the amount you'd regain would have to be higher perhaps but it would also mean that you cant be too wild with barrel rolls etc.

Just a thought