In the areas where the subjunctive is used, this difference is sometimes seen as an educated/not educated, or high class/low class feature, but in areas where the subjunctive is not generally used, the subjunctive is seen as a bit pompous.

I suspect that the subjunctive (If I were going to do that, …) is used less in Britain than in the USA, but this is just hearsay. Maybe someone across the water might have something to say about it.

Your grammar is fine. Maybe you want to say “, but I feel…” in the first sentence.

PS Here’s a link about the subjunctive:

http://www.ceafinney.com/subjunctive/guide.html

As far as your grammar and punctuation: It’s fine, except that I, personally, would use single quotation marks (‘) instead of the doubles (“) because it isn’t a direct quote, but rather an example of something that might be said. I think that’s just a personal rule, not a strict grammar-based one, though.

Many peoplre don’t realise that, and so use the simple past instead.

Many believe that the subjunctive in English should be done away with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive