I don't think you're entirely unjust in your opinion, but on some level I do think it might just be you're finding guys really good at FIFA as a whole. For a point of reference, I played someone last night who did what you described and handled him easily 3-1. Now I did go to elevated through balls a decent amount, but more because he was opening up huge swathes of real estate by playing this psycho style so I just would play the ball into space to avoid the chaos.
My general feeling so far is that yes the defending is still too hyperactive in the online environment, which leads to too many collisions and wild physicality (though there are more fouls for sure). However, giving up that much open space by being a psycho aggressive player is opening up more lanes than in the past, and I do think it's harder to recover. Stamina still does need to matter more as well in these online games, no argument there.