How would you design a control system suitable for ground and flight based movement/combat, or what have you played that did this well?

The different races did add to DD. After an extended war with the forces of evil which scared and reshaped the land, though, I wouldn't expect there to be a lot of political infighting or conflict between the survivors for awhile, even if there were other races in the game.
It is too bad if there are no familiar areas in the game, other than Aleroth (with 50 years, or whatever, to develop into a city), but I wouldn't count that as a huge negative.