I think now that Woz and I have calmed down, and made our peace to a certain extent, I can see where he's coming from a bit more. That last big post helped a lot. I'm still confused about the sense of speed thing, as I feel the speed more with higher FOV's not lower, but maybe that's a perception thingy - you know, how people see the faces rather than the vase first, and others see the vase first.
As Gunn as summed up, the aim of the 'View Restrictions' (
) is not to, imo, force everyone to use the same view, but to limit people to sensible view options within the sim racing environment. I think the Papy method has it's virtues, but is a little too inflexible bearing in mind the differences in hardware and personal requirments. I need to be able to see the mirrors, preferably in the corner of my eye, and I achieve this with the large FOV. 60 is, for me, too narrow, though it is of course worse in some cars than others. However I am happy to accept what is given to me. I believe I am adaptable enough to cope with a forced position and FOV, but I would still prefer a small range of adjustability.
The final list drawn up seems good. I agree that Auto-Clutch has to remain enabled until either three-pedal setups become the norm, or the button clutch becomes a viable alternative which I don't think it is at the moment.
Random damage should never be included. In real life motorsport is a team sport (even in 'grass roots' racing it's more common that a group of people work on the car rather than one racer/engineer), and as such failures do happen - that can then be blamed on a preceeding event, and as such is not truly random. When I was last involved in the HSCC we had a wet race at Croft (I think it was), and our Fulvia was going around the outside of Elans which in the dry are 4 or 5 seconds a lap quicker. We got up to 2nd overall in 2 laps, then the throttle cable, which was improperly tightened on the carbs, came loose and we coasted to an embarassing halt. It wasn't random. I'd put money on that failure never happening again.
On the flip side I think that driving style should have an effect on the car - hitting kerbs hard should have the potential to damage the body, transmission, engine etc. Over-revving should cause a bit of damage, even if it's just that the engine starts to consume a bit of oil, and so later in the race you have to be careful about oil surge in corners as your oil level runs a bit lower (for the wet-sumped cars at least). So driver related failures are okay (if properly and fairly simulated), but random failures should not be.