That is not what makes it bad. But that is not how I see it either. What makes it a terrible system is how its managed. You lose reports after 60/90 days. Why in the world? Who would throw reports away for someone on your shortlist. Meaning you have interest in them.
You can't search for specific positions. If you want a CAM you have to search for CM which includes CMs, CAMs and CDMs. Cluttering up the results. This is when you are searching, not using a scout. When using a scout you choose midfield or attacker. So it gets even more grouped together.
Scouts don't give you the proper reporting of the players ability. Which is no the bad thing. Its how they relay it that is the problem. This garbage of stat ranges is dumb and most of the time highly accurate. OVR means nothing. I only care about key stats for each positions. So it should be based off a scoring system. What does the scout think of his crossing ability, poor, below average, average, above average or good. I would much more prefer that. And each of those could have wildly different stat ranges in them based on the position and the scout. Don't show me all the numbers. Hide them all. Showing me the numbers makes me go nuts when scouting players. I spend way too much time on it. And I can always find the best player doing so. I have not had a bust pickup since my first season using it. It doesn't work as intended. Which just makes the whole thing feel busted even more. Basically lower level scouts need to be wrong more often. I haven't had a bust as you say in forever. The system is too easy to find gems.
Also let me compare scouted players side by side better. The current compare view is terrible. And it should be smart enough to compare only keep areas for that position. I don't need to see defensive stats for a striker.
Another problem with it is fact that the scout will run out of people to scout. Really? You mean in all of Italy you could only find 3 players? And now your giving up. What? There are surely more than 3 players in the entire country that meet my measly criteria. Which leads me to the next thing.
Scouts need to have traits and personalities. Every scout is exactly the same in the game, and I don't feel the need to spend the big money on a highly rated scout. Because I can do the same thing with a 2 star scout for much less money. That is how broken the system is. Scouts need to be widely different in decision making, ability to find talent, etc.
Maybe I want too much out of the game. But I spend a lot of my free time playing FIFA. And I would like a better overall experience in my CMs. I find this system so broken I don't even use it anymore. I just use the youth program to bring 3-4 a players a year (which is also pretty broken). And if I need a transfer I use the search system to find the players I want. I don't bother scouting anyone anymore. You can tell how a good a player is based off his value and wage. Why bother scouting when I know a player with a value of 7million and a wage of 50K that the team is asking 15 million for and is crucial to their squad, will be 75 rated or higher and be good at his position.