For the controls, I've used rigidbody.velocity in my game (the game jam one and the one i'm making in my spare time), so it has that super snappy arcade feel to it. I think that will work for your game too maybe. It works for my game-jam game, but for my game i'm making in my spare time people have said it feels too artificial (because people can shift from going forward to going backwards instantly).
Brackeys doesnt go into detail about it, but he mentions a sort of in-between approach in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rwo_qdLag8 , if you pause at the 1min mark you can see some of the code he uses. I'm thinking of trying a similar approach in the future.
Anyway, best of luck with your future game dev work!