If the bb on the focus isn't physically higher than the felt, I'll bet that feeling is something you could address with flat bars or a different stem maybe.
Good point, I've just looked into this.
The BB dropout on the Focus is 28 (mm I presume), but on the Felt it is 40. So according to
this diagram, my understanding is that the Focus is indeed physically higher off the ground than the Felt, and this affects my riding confidence. This is only 12mm difference so maybe there are other factors affecting how high off the ground the rider feels? However, this
review of the Felt draws attention to the low bottom bracket, so it is indeed low by mountain bike standards (they say this can be problematic on rocky trails, but if that's the way I like it, what can ya do?) Either way, I definitely feel much more confident, fast and secure riding the lower Felt.
The guy in
this article states that a lower BB doesn't make a difference " because center of gravity is not really an issue on a bicycle, and raising or lowering it has little effect on stability", but in practice, I find that this has a big effect on my riding confidence and if I FEEL that I'm going to fall over, I probably will do.
I'll probably go for the Felt and upgrade the fork later. I'll have at least a couple of years to save up for a new one and the Felt is £100 cheaper than the Focus anyway, I can put that money into a fork...