I can't believe it, I actually woke up this morning wanting to post this exact same analogy.
This problem is huge (for me anyway).
Along the same lines as the ability delay is the slow sluggish feeling of the camera itself (like a big unresponsive SUV, that actually turns the car about .5 to 1 second after you actually turn the steering wheel) The camera effects the feeling of being mounted as well. Its like this big sluggish feeling when riding them, terrible.
This is what Bioware is saying to me, simply by not adding a "remove mouse smoothing option"....Here's what they are saying to me as a paying customer:
"Hey, thanks for buying and continuing to subscribe. Thanks for mentioning your concerns, and we're aware that almost every pc game in the last century has had a very responsive camera, and always an option to remove mouse smoothing. But sorry, but we don't want you to play our game, we don't want you to play because we like mouse smoothing, because it sounds cool, and sounds like another polished feature, even though it's a polished piece of ____. We know you're frustrated by it, but we really don't want you driving a ferrari, we want a slow sluggish unresponsive feel not ONLY from your abilities, but from the Camera as well, HECK, we want you to feel slow and sluggish EVEN WHEN ORBITING YOUR CHARACTER ON THE CHARACTER SELECTIONS SCREEN. So f-off, we don't want you playing our game, because as easy as it is to add an option to remove mouse smoothing, we don't want to do it, because we hate you, and we want you to feel sluggish and unresponsive throughout your SWTOR experience."
lol, but really I almost feel like this, why of F'n why would they not add an option to remove mouse smoothing???
OH, AND lol, that camera slow IN/OUT? It takes like 10 - 15 seconds for your camera to reach full distance once it's been zoomed in.... DO YOU KNOW HOW f'n annoying this is?
Really, for these two things, the only reason I can see, is some higher up in the company said "Hey lets smooth and slug everything, camera movement, even the camera in and out." and no one will disagree with him because they're fearing for there jobs, and 10000's of people are now feeling sluggy throughout the game because of one idiot. Maybe, maybe not...
JUST..
FIX...
IT.
Let me remove mouse smoothing and corrective slow paced camera self-adjustment.
FTLOG.