Yeah, those ideas all make sense to me. I agree that friction is weird, but also a good variable to play with.
I also wonder if the scale, either of the objects themselves or the field of view or both, could be tweaked to help that. I feel like there’s a tricky interaction between controls, max speed, view size, and object size that might just be a little out of balance here.
Lots to play with, ha ha. Good luck!