I keep watching these car shows/reviews, like car and driver tv and 5th gear, and they always seem to like the car handling with the traction control off. I thought the point of traction control was to make traction better, hence better to have it on during hard cornering? I don't get it.

 

Some people think it's best, myself included, to have the traction control off...unless it's snowing.

 

traction control won't help you in hard corning it doesn't give you more traction. It just limits power to the wheels to essentially reduce your trottle inputs. Generally it allows for no to little spinning of the tires, which can be slower on the track especially if it retards timing.

 

Also you might be thinking about stability control. Stability control especially bad examples are very intrusive. I drove a chrysler 300 touring. When I did a U-turn, it was like driving with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake at the same time. Instead of allowing the rear end to step out the stability control cut engine power and put the brakes on as it took over driving from the driver.

 

If you want to go around a track quickly you need to be able to rotate the car on command (e.g. intentional throttle-lift oversteer to get it pointed). The various stability control systems get in the way of that and usually cause the car to understeer.

Out on the street, I think people are fools for turning these systems off in their daily commutes. And, for example, I can do a very spirited mountain drive in my Z06 with all systems active and not feel like I have a nanny (driving at, say, 7/10ths). You'll only notice a good active handling system if you start sliding too much.