1. platforming cuz why not, I love it
2. but isnt the point of sonic to go fast?
3. all I know is that I think it was a picture posted on discord a long time ago. I do not know the source, and it isnt mine. its most likely an official model from either sonic 3 manuals or promos.
1 and 2. The point of Sonic isn't to go fast without earning it, at least in the Classic mindset of level design. You must earn speed. This is why the 3 faucets of level design (speed, platforming, exploration) all come together to one major describer of the core ideal of Classic Sonic level design: Flow. Classic Sonic's about flow, not speed. However,
too much platforming disrupts flow, so, 1 and 2 conflict.
However, if you haven't heard yet, the physics of SRB2 are getting revamped in 2.3, and a form of Momentum Mod is becoming vanilla.
3. Heheheheh, I know this one. Those are official, and were on the CG artist for S3's website. Somebody found it, decided to post it in the HP server but nobody wanted it to spread, causing a loss of further info from the CG artist. Well, too bad it got leaked outside of the server because of it being posted in public. It got to me, I didn't consider the possibility of it being still under investigation, it got onto Twitter, and spread like wildfire. I tried my hardest to contain it, but it was too late. Too many emails were sent, any chance of further info was lost.