I hear you guys. We keep going back to ramming to try to figure out why it doesn't seem to be counting properly (because that's the real problem, not the action itself). I understand it's frustrating, and I'm sorry. We're taking one more look to investigate a possible bug with the way collision damage is applied. Stay tuned.
With buffing balloons, if that particular buff is perceived as not useful, that itself is a problem. I conferred with awkm, and we're going to raise the duration of the balloon buff from 20 seconds to 1 minute, which should significantly increase its tactical usefulness. Also, note that buffing the balloon does not automatically make you rise -- it reduces vertical drag, which means you can both rise and sink faster. If you rise suddenly when a balloon buff finishes, it's because you were holding down W at the time.