psm on or off is a personal choice.
my cars don't have them, so i have to drive with them off.

"By this logic, shouldn't we all be learning to drive on the track in Miata's?"
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aboslutely. the hp of porsches and grip of mspc can really make you think you are better than you really are. most p car drivers break too much. i got about 70 track days in 2 years and i started on a 996C2 but moved to a spec miata and learned a lot more at a faster rate. an a well driven miata ain't that slow. avergage time at TH with clyclone in a 996C2 is about 1:09. a well driven miata can also hit 1:09!

 

Mooty's point is valid if you want to learn to be fast. I think you'll learn to be a much better driver in a spec, low HP class like Spec Miata. You have to learn how to drive the car very smoothly and optimize your lines or you just won't cut it. Also, you can't afford to make mistakes with the cars being all pretty close in performance terms. (Some are more well prepared than others, but they are all reasonably close.) And with not enough HP to close up the gap after a mistake, you have to learn to minimize errors.

Of course, you can also learn to be fast in other cars as well. But, you'll learn a lot more, a lot faster, in a highly competive series in low HP cars.

 

You definitely learn how to conserve momentum (being in a momentum car), but does that really translate directly to skill in a higher HP car? (I am really asking the question, not making a statement). Don't a lot of top drivers these days come out of karts and those wouldn't be correlated to a low HP car, would it? Lots of acceleration and hard braking required there, isn't there?

Don't get me wrong. High HP definitely corrupts you and covers up mistakes, but I am not sure learning in a momentum car translates to being a better high-HP car driver, does it?

 

My racer friends that have moved up the rank from spec miatas to higher hp racing cars (not street cars) say it does. It allows you to handle even higher momentums.

It's all about being smooth and finding the right line. The more hp and the faster you go, the harder it is to maintain the right line. You need time to build up the razor sharp reflexes, like Schumaker does, in order to increase pace.

Learning to race in a low hp car first makes as much sense as letting a 16 year old learn to drive in the family beater first, not the 400hp $100k+ car.

I also think most TT class drivers will find they don't fair all that well in a spec miata or kart race. The reverse will not be true (given some warmup time).

Of course, there are always exceptions just as racer63 pointed out. Some drivers will "get it" in a short amount of time even in a high hp car. Those are the lucky few