Certainly experimentation to use different spirits bases when making gin; it's make it tricky because essentially you have a whole new dimension of flavour to get right. And if you just want to taste the botanicals then NGS is the way to go. As Artisan Still Design mentioned there are gins that use rice spirit there are also apple, pear, grape, potato, honey, whey, 7 grain, oats, millet based gins out there.
If you want your Classic Style of Gin I'd stick with NGS if you want something a bit more Contemporary (modern/new western) then either NGS or new-make can work.
Regarding the botanicals the cheat sheet selection looks good, fresh, rather than dried. citrus adds quite a nice character: there are a few more thoughts here: http://distilling.uberflip.com/t/63864 on pages 45-46.