Honestly, I haven't noticed any horrible ability delays. Yes, the combat is slower paced than some MMOs but I don't automatically count that as a negative... just like I prefer slower paced shooters like BF3 to Quake style twitchfests I prefer (somewhat) slower paced combat in MMOs. Basically, I like combat that is decided by who uses the best strategy and tactics, not who can click / press buttons faster or who has the best macros. I do notice a bit of delay at times, but it's certainly well under a second and the only time I ever have an ability fail to fire is when I get stunned / interrupted / etc... or the target gets out of my firing arc during charge-up. Maybe it's a PvP specific problem (I haven't tried warzones yet), or a high level problem (my highest character is 30) or maybe it's different for some people than others, but while I wouldn't call the combat all that responsive I wouldn't call it horribly sluggish either. Certainly if abilities are misfiring that's a significant problem, it is just one I have yet to personally experience. (I mainly play Troopers, Bounty Hunters, and Conuslars but I've tried everything but a Smuggler for at least a bit.) Incidentally, the most responsive MMO I've played is Dark Age of Camelot. But then that game had to be, since most melee classes had a strong reliance on positional attacks. This game has very few positionals that I've seen so it can be a little more clunky without really ruining things, at least for those of us who do not like gameplay that relies heavily on twitch skills.

One thing to keep in mind is that there may be a maximum speed the servers can handle. City of Heroes ran into that... they had to nerf the cap on travel power speeds because it was causing too much strain on the servers to have people running 100+ MPH. I'm assuming there will be epic speeders with higher speeds, so if +150% or so is the most the server can handle then making the best storebought speeders +110% gives decent room for faster speeders from other sources. On the other hand, if the server can handle it I definitely think +100% for a lvl 25, +125% for a lvl 40, and +150% for a plain lvl 50 would be much better. That would leave +175% and +200% for epic speeders and at +200% we might actually start feeling like we're on a speeder instead of a moped...