Your dash is changed to a spiral-dash at one point in the late-game, and yeah, that's pretty much it. All I can tell you is use those portal-boost-rock-things whenever there's one in your flight path.
Yeah, I liked Twilight Epona better too. Flying is a crazy rush at the start of the game but it does get old, especially when going in and out of the thunderhead.
I love this game to death, but even having 100% cleared it today, I'm still finding certain control and presentational choices questionable. This, to me, is every bit the epic Zelda action/story that I crave, but it is not the hit-the-mark demonstration of Wii control setups that, say, Metroid Prime 3 was. This game has several minor annoyances in its interface, and while the fact that Motion Plus lets me mislead Ghirahim's hand is nice, I found little other relevant use of it besides the bow. And speaking of the bow, the use of Motion Plus to reset your neutral pointing position is completely senseless and annoying for any items that are NOT the bow. The same imprecisions of the basic Wii remote losing accuracy when you move too quickly still apply, convincing me that the editorial Motion Plus hype train was a complete load of fiction (this goes way beyond just Zelda, but that's another discussion). I'm also annoyed with the fact that Link raises his shield whenever he recovers from a hit, thus preventing you from charging a Skyward Strike when you get to your feet. It took me until the end of the damn game to realize that was a design choice and not a controller malfunction, and it's an exceedingly poor one. There is ZERO point to it; no enemy attacks you that rapidly, and even if they did, leaving your shield up without a thrust is exactly what you SHOULDN'T be doing according to the new combat and durability mechanics (which are otherwise great).