There is an obvious solution for the whole control thing. Take the controller, turn it on its side, that right just like that , and play it NES style and make it a 2D game with life like graphics. Why not.
On the not of turning Sonic and people having trouble I personally find that I'm trying to control characters like I would in real life. So I assume that the faster I'm going the harder it should be for me to turn. In most games that is far from the truth and it makes the controls plain just too loose for me.