I'm not really sure there are random frame rate drops so can't say I have plans to fix them. I seem to remember a description where someone's frame rate was dropping from 350 to 280, or something like that when he came round the final bend. And I think I remember someone's frame rate video driving on access roads where the frame rate was slightly lower where more scenery was visible. So not random at all.
We've allowed nice views in the new Westhill. It is no surprise and not a bug, if you run unlimited frame rate and the frame rate is lower when more scenery is visible.
For me personally, the texture resolution is too high. Because I don't spend any time in LFS gazing at walls from 50cm away, I find the high resolution textures pointless. In our development version, which doesn't use compressed textures, I used half texture res the whole time, and never saw a resolution problem. It's not that I don't like things to be well defined. I really do. My point is that you don't even see the super high res textures unless you are really, really close to them. At normal viewing distances you see one of many mipmaps, not the highest resolution version of the texture.
I have tried flicking between comparison shots, comparing super high res and half of super high res, and there wasn't a pixel difference except on the tarmac up to about 2m in front of the car (car body had to be switched off to allow this to be seen).
But at the moment if you switch to half texture resolution, all textures are reduced including the car interior textures. So I was thinking of adding a per-track texture resolution option, to allow you to use half res textures on tracks with super high res textures, so improving the frame rate without any visible loss of quality.
Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing if the people who have frame rate problems can reduce it by using half texture resolution, or if it's more a problem with the number of objects or triangles being drawn. And how is your frame rate in SHIFT+U mode (where there is no hidden object removal). Preferably on a dedicated thread. By the way, frame rate dropping from 350 to 280 doesn't register as 'a problem' to me.