Am I the only one who has grown accustomed to, and fallen in love with the driving in this game? I love the way you can powerslide ever so smoothly in the right vehicles, the way you can land jumps perfectly (on the rear wheels) and keep your momentum going, and the way you can traverse all types of terrain at high speeds.

I think the racing idea isnt a bad idea, but its not that great either.  GTA IV had some great driving modes that could in theory work well in this game, but I also felt the driving was alot tighter in GTA IV.  Straight up racing I think would be a mistake, as I didnt feel the driving was that special, its the phyiscs that make the game, but having a demolition derby would be really cool, or like a 2 man team racing against other 2 man teams, one gunner one driver, either trying to destroy each other, or do building damage, something along those lines.  The other problem with straight up racing is that while it is an open world game, the maps are much more channeled than GTA IV was.  In GTA the only real choke points where bridges between island, but almost the whole island was open.  Mars is much more channeled, while mountains and pits limiting your field of play much more.

That being said, I loved the game and would love to see Voalition try and make something, becuase it has the potential to be great.

I honestly didn't like the driving all that much in this game. Maybe that's just because I'm not good at racing games in general but the vehicles seemed kind of clunky.

I'm glad you're loving the driving. Personally, if they doubled the number of different vehicles (more normal passenger cars, please) it would be amazing. The physics adds to the experience, as you said. I hit a giant cliff once and unintentionally dive-bombed my car straight into the roof of a building, then drove out of the third floor window with EDF all over my ass. Beautiful game.