There was a patch shortly after release which reduce the timer before the race starts from something like 10 to 8. When I posted the review and even with last weeks update I make it 8 seconds from the "press [whatever] to skip" prompt vanishing to the actual countdown starting, thats insane!
If R8 games aren't fully dedicated to weapons then they should seriously consider removing them from the game. Advertising a feature on the store page and then in game that feature being completely unnecessary to the game and being severely under developed reflects really poorly on the overall quality. The weapons need a serious rethink both in terms of how they work in game with the cards and how they look and feel. If R8 games can't or don't want put in the work then they should probably be removed since there's barely any point to them right now apart from being able to say "we have weapons like wipeout!".

I'm not convinced FF on PS4 will be a huge success either, especially with omega collection out. While they are very different games the omega collection has a lot of content in it and all the systems in the game work well together and makes sense. FF seems like a mashup of ideas which sounded good on paper but in practice don't work well together. R8 have a lot of work a head of them if they want and are banking on the PS4 launch being successful This probably involves making large changes to many of the systems such as the upgrade cards, weapons, and teams. I'm not convinced because I haven't seen any of the devs say they are looking at making these large changes. All of the updates so far (including 1.1) have been bug / polish and some new skins. Maybe R8 are working on large changes behind the scenes but if they are they should probably be talking with the community about it since a lot of the problems with FF could be traced back to a lack of interaction / talking / getting feedback with their backers / TPP / EA testers.

I'd put money on the lack of small bumps on the tracks being a deliberate choice since it would highlight how glued to the track the ships really are. It would probably feel like the last section of mag lock on moa therma so they stuck to large jumps since thats what their physics system works well with. I remember playing the monorail track as well and I'm surprised it made it as far as it did. Here's hoping it doesn't crop up again.

I've never been impressed with any of the HUDs (especially visually) throughout early access / TPP but the latest iteration is definitely a step down from the previous. Hopefully another HUD is in the works which will actually be good this time. I'm also pleased to see there's a help section in 1.1 now. It's no replacement for a full tutorial system but at least it's something and shows R8 are aware of the issue.

I think an interesting thing to note is the devs responses to why teams doesn't have their own ships or why the tracks lack spectators and other moving parts. They said ideally they would have those things but they don't have the time or resources since the assets take a long time to make at the quality they set. While FF does look very pretty it sounds like the quality they set themselves for the size of their team means the game is worse off for it. Looking back it seems like it would have been a better choice to either set the bar lower for the assets or choosing a more stylistic art direction, both of which probably would have allowed for much faster asset creation and would have allowed more content to be added to the game and probably would have solved many of the issues I've got surrounding the teams and track decorations.