This is simply wrong. Games should be balanced for competitive play, that's out of question. No one needs 2 seconds to reverse, vehicles just have acceleration and deceleration time.
No it's not wrong, because unlike what you just wrote which is your own personal opinion. What I wrote is something relic said themselves. Relic balances for all skill levels not just the top players.
That's just simply what you want because you don't care about less skilled players. Relic on the other hand needs to concern themselves with all players, seeing as they need more then 200 players to keep this game alive.