[Ships blowing up during re-entry]

Maybe your goo containers clipped through your service bay and are connected directly to the heatshield instead...?

[how does reentry heat really work?]

Common misconception. Your craft compresses the atmosphere immediately in front of it which increases temperature. The ideal gas law (PV = nRT) is the mathematical explanation; P = pressure, V = volume, n = moles, R = gas constant, T = temp.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_entry (shock layer gas physics section)

[SAS+Gimbals=Rockets no reachey spacey.]

I was having the same issue. Until I started throttling down when I could hear the air really buffeting the rocket. Throttling down early enough to the appropriate thrust levels eliminated that drag related end over end tumble.

I think I kept the rocket under 500 m/s (surface) below 10km.

[Devnote Tuesday: It’s All In The Details]

I mis-wrote that. Not overriding it, just affecting the sensitivity of the controls.

I was thinking that it would have you put some thought into which Kerbals you send on which missions, performing maneuvers (docking, landing rovers, etc.) or testing experimental craft.

[Devnote Tuesday: It’s All In The Details]

I'd like stupidity to be a multiplier for the existing skills (or a divider, whichever makes more sense) so that a kerbal with low stupidity would pilot a craft with less error and jitter...

Good idea: Skilled pilots would have finer control of their crafts (divider) whereas unskilled pilots would constantly over-input on the controls (multiplier).

I'd like to see scientists be able to reset the goo container and the materials bay when at highest skill level, but have the data only be transmittable through the science lab

Engineers could have Kerbal Attachment capabilities at highest skill (e.g. reattach broken lander leg)