Actually, 007MIKE, the jump pads, although not perfectly implemented, were intended to be a shortcut for a fresh spawn to get clear of the railgunner who'd be camping in the courtyard or hall, and grab a megahealth and some armor, possibly saving his/her ass ;). The risk of blasting off into the void was set to counter the substantial reward for a successful jump. However, I discovered a bit of a bug in the version that was reviewed here, and I've been working on a fix - Delta 2 will be available soon, so if you are interested, I'll post back when I get the next version released. It's got fixed jump pads, better architecture and clip brush placement, and revised item placement. And I'd imagine twelve bots was a fragfest ;) ..
BTW, has anyone had a chance to play this against a human opponent?