Widewing,
I disagree strongly about your statement that stability control is for worst-case drivers. I was taught to drive by a CHP pursuit driver, learned skid control using the snowy parking lot method just like you say, race my firebird in SCCA autocross competition, and I STILL had my butt saved by my firebird's traction control. I was driving at night, and it was snowing very lightly. The snow was very dry and the wind was blowing it off the road, so conditions were not all that bad really. Then I hit a patch of ice and the car immediately started to spin.
The traction control immediately kicked in. The gas pedal bump kicked my foot off the gas, retarded the ignition, and the TCS and ABS systems applied the brakes to individual wheels as necessary to get the car straightened out again. It was over in less than a second. There is NO WAY I could have reacted that quickly and I'm convinced that I would have spun and wrecked if the TCS system hadn't saved my butt that night.
Before you go thinking "that wouldn't have happened to me 'cause I'm a better driver", I was in my mid-20s, was a young F-15 fighter pilot fresh out of training that enhances spatial orientation, reflexes and hand-eye coordination, had been racing that car for a while, and I had arguably better reflexes and coordination than around 99% of the population. It wouldn't have made a difference. It happened too fast. Any speed over 20 mph would have had the same results, but traffic was averaging about 55 at the time and the 50 mph I was going seemed rather slow for the predominant conditions.
I drove another 8 hours that night, and didn't encounter another icy patch of road, so my point is that the stability control is there to help out in unexpected situations just as much as it is to save incompetent drivers.
