Well it sounds as if it is one hell of a game, I can not seem to find it anywhere around here for sale.
On the ebrake thing, I find more often games are making that feature more difficult to use. Using the ebrake in a real car and doing really sharp turns is not particularly hard - it just commands good judgement and timing - but I think they purposefully make it harder to use so that it doesnt become something that dominates the ability to make a sharp turn or increase the chances that you can get away and allude the cops. Or I think they do it because they truely dont understand the physics and mechanics of the car when the ebrake is used and just guess that the car must go out of control very quickly because you were going fast and now youre decelerating at a tremendous rate.
Anyhow, more reviews, so I know if I need to buy this game!