canofhumdingers said:

The things that really ruined it for me were things like the stupid hot rod race at the beginning... what was that? it served no purpose but to look cool. ok, that happens sometimes in adventure films, but usually the "looking cool" sequences at least involve key characters or have SOME sort of relation to the story at large. This HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING ELSE IN THE MOVIE. It was just there b/c Lucas likes hotrod racing.

I have to disagree with you on that since it was just the teaser for the opening credits and pretty much follows suit with the style done with the other Indy films. In Raiders, the opening credits was simply shots of shadowy people walking through the jungle, and it was only after the credits finished rolling that the story actually started. Same for Crusade: just shots of the desert and really wide shots of people on horseback. And then there's Temple of Doom that started out with a musical number from Anything Goes that had nothing to do with the plot. It was simply there because something had to go over the credits, and Spielberg always wanted to direct a big musical sequence.

My point is is that you're not supposed to expect a huge amount of story while the credits are rolling. Most movies do it this way. And this sequence is no more distracting than others. It sets up the time period and it also introduces the military men, who become agents of action as soon as the credits finish rolling and they enter the base.

But as for the rest of your arguments, I did agree with most of them. The seemingly random prevalence of the gophers especially left me scratching my head.