Driving around @ bl1 with xfg does not make such a huge difference perhaps...but go with Fzr with 12 fps, clearly impossible to get any decent laptime under the belt. I for one noticed that switching from old p4 to core 2 duo back in the days, i got instantly nearly half a second faster (on my demo years) for some reason. Sure yeah, you could get used to it...but if you are serious about sim racing then anything under 30 is out of the question.
non-gamers don't usually appeal on a racing simulator. Not a single non-gamer out of the people i have shown it have got it after they have tried it, of course they were like: "oh yeah that's cool...etc...". But.... it's way too hard to drive for a starter + consumes a pretty huge amount of time to be a competitive. And yes ofcourse it can appeal them to buy the game and stay eventually for a longer time than few races, but that number is just too small(compared to a gamers) to make any difference...
Though graphical part looks stunning, i'm not going to invest a single penny to the product until i have tried it myself...bring on the goddarn demo already!!!
Actually for me it is, I ofcourse don't upload it for others to use (other people being able to put them in their own skins folder is just a bad sideffect, but there is nothing I can do about it), most of the skins i have uploaded are either team or eventbased skins anyway. I think it's safe to say that i have never took someones skin and drove around with it. So according to your logic: I like Western Wolves teamskin, i just go to my downloaded skins folder, put it on my main skins folder and go drive around with it on public servers? For me it's not ethical....but that's just me.