Amar,
I could get no where near your suggested ratios of 5/1,6/1. let alone an insane 7/1. With stock brakes, 5 is a lock up fest with any car at less than a quarter of total in game brake pressure which is even less than a quarter of physical brake pedal travel (yes I did your calibration trick every time and it helped a little bit, but not much difference overall). At a setting of 7/1, a butterfly farting on my brake pedal causes a complete lock up of my fronts. At no point did the rears even come close to locking up or even give a little bit of extra corner entry rotation until I put them to 6 or above. Putting the rear down to 1 seems unnecessary as the fronts are locking up well ahead of the rears with every type of car.
With racing upgrade brakes, I have to use a ratio of 0/0 on all cars, all tires, and even then it is still locking up my front tires with less than a quarter of in game brake pressure.
Even so, as busted as all of the brake ratio settings and implementation is in GT, even if they got with the standardized concept of brake bias settings, even then. The physics are absolutely terrible in the way they deal with tire lock up. All you have to do is just hold your brakes constantly at the edge where it makes the small tire squeal noise (pretty much what ABS 1 does) and you can still turn in and do what ever you want. It doesn't represent some new balance, it is just a different challenge. I could still carry 100% brakes deep into corners as long as my ratios were set low enough with stock brakes. TBO was still non existent and trail braking still feels wrong. If I am braking straight, I can get to the threshold (little bit of tire squeal) and still turn in without any lock up or need for trail braking. However, if I have my wheel slightly turned, and then apply the tiniest amount of brakes, no where near threshold for the available grip, it goes into insta lock. Unlocking the tires almost always requires a complete let off of the brakes instead of the very easy to learn slight lift to get them rolling again. I believe you even address this in your post saying it is about on,off,on off braking in GT, not real threshold braking.
I agree that ABS 1 is taking away some of the car rotation and feel in corner entry. But what ABS 0 gives you, is so much worse in comparison. It doesn't unlock more physics, it unlocks a nightmare waste of time. It undoubtedly adds a challenge, which GT6 definitely needs because it is still an incredibly forgiving racing sim, and ABS 1 is an assist no matter which way you cut it. However, I can still stomp on and off the gas and brake and seems to only upset the balance of the car in negative G situations, e.g. going over a rise where the suspension begins to unload as the car gets light. That seems to be the only time in GT6 where staying 100% on the throttle or snapping off gets the tail to come around on you unexpectedly (I consider power-on oversteer at corner exit, "expected"). Even with ABS 0, the car is still numb in corner entry with many cars and corners mainly because the off throttle coasting is hollow without any meaningful transmission modeled in GT games.
As it stands in this update of GT6, ABS 1 is crap, ABS 0 is mega crap. Chose your poison. I am sticking with ABS 1 for now because ABS 0 is not braking, it is an arbitrary pedal based mini game. I can jump into 10 different sims right now, turn off all assists, and I will never have to spend hours upon hours just to get the car to even mildly represent a decent approximation of real world braking. The idea that you had to make a detailed document on how to get ABS 0 to not be completely broken, should be a good indication of where it stands in GT games. On top of that, the fact you still can't set a online filter for 0 ABS sessions is revealing too.
Every other game I have played in the last 15+ years, un-checking the "ABS on" assist is a non event, because the cars always behave and brake exactly as you would expect.Sure you will need minor brake bias adjustments here and there for track or driver preference, but it never "unlocks" anything other than the ability to lock my tires up if I brake too hard, but that is what the concept of threshold braking is for. I understand threshold braking, I have done it in real life on race tracks, in race cars. I have done if for hundreds of thousands of corners in racing sims. It is pretty basic stuff. After turning on the car, and making sure everyone knows how to shift and steer, it is literally the first thing they teach you at a racing school. This isn't some exotic racing technique that requires "cheat sheets" to achieve. The most recent example, it took me two laps in AC to get the feel and sound feedback of threshold braking, which is about the same for most other sims. Not several hours and a bookmarked forum post.
RE: Steering lock adjust shortcuts
I use a G27, the 670 lock, IMO, is a must for any higher end sports car or race car. The steering ratio doesn't change, so you end up with super floppy FFB and a huge steering ratio for those kind of cars. On top of that, the FFB still has a massive input lag, so any counter steering or holding of slides is on delay and you get the FFB of the tires gripping again several milliseconds too late. 670 reduces this problem and feels much more responsive. I have no idea with your fanatec, but with the G27, the steering lock adjustments for higher end cars improves the feel of the cars almost as much as the new tire or suspension physics. It is honestly that substantial. I no longer live near anyone with a fanatec so I can't speak to comparisons. Maybe someone who owns both can.
The steering ratio does automatically adjust for some cars, like the X2010, formula GT as it did in GT5. But you will have the same loose steering ratio in an old Fiat 500 as you do in a Ferrari 458. The main thing about the lock adjustment is that it changes the steering ratio of that car (I still never hit the lock limits of 670 or 900 unless I am spun and reversing or something), which still don't exist in the tuning menu, so it allows you to fix what PD didn't with the hidden button shortcuts.
Edit: I hate when I type up an impression post like this that it comes off so negative on GT. I am still loving GT6 and think they made strides. There are just still a ton of long standing issues they desperately need to resolve. The ABS debacle happens to be one. Don't take this the wrong way. I just don't think I have as much patience with PD these days. They have made the same mistakes too many times now.