Eric, you're thinking more like an engineer than you give yourself credit for
-> Considering your market
-> Ease of construction (for time, design, feasibility, and monetary reasons)
-> Keeping cost down and price reasonable a DIY project moneymaking potential
As far as safety goes, pretty much all passenger vehicles from the past 40 odd years are designed to understeer, so that when a driver makes a mistake, it is likely that the car will end up hitting something head on, fully utilizing the crush zone. Front end collisions are safer than any other because car companies have designed their cars to work in this way. This is a response to America's complete lack of required driver training.
Food for thought:
The VW
The Morgan
The Aptera
I approve of all of these designs, and read all of the articles about them as soon as they came out. :P