Other negative points to me:

- When you shut down the music, you don't hear the man voice during introductions.
- Colliding with other ships gives damage. What is this for? Realism?

Overall, I think that Pure was almost pure, and that Pulse is messy. Too ambitious with not enough time, maybe. Certainly not enough tested.
That makes me wonder, even if I don't know if this can be answered:
What did SL want for Pulse? What did Sony want?
I don't know how reacted the majority of newcomers to WipEout, but despite the efforts made for them, I believe Pulse is too frustrating, because of both bugs and some elements of gameplay (sticky walls to name a major one).
So if Sony rushed the release of Pulse, and that at the same time they wanted to enlarge the audience, I think they made a mistake. I wouldn't advice anyone to buy Pulse, whereas I'd go on for hours worshipping Pure.