I agree completely. This has been a problem with Madden for some time. It makes a guy like Hines Ward useless against any CB who has speed higher than a 90 (since I believe Hines' is like 88-89), regardless of what their overall rating is, he can never beat them on deep routes. Or the flipside, being that you could have mediocre WR's with like an 80 rating, burn a great CB, simply because the CB's speed rating is significantly less.
Speed most definitely matters, but it's not nearly that much of a difference as in Madden. You could have a garbage player with a 70 something rating, but as long as he has speed he can be elite when it comes to WR/CB positions. If speed was all it took, a guy like Devin Hester would be a top WR in the game, when he's not even in the top 50.
The Madden team seems to have the right idea for this season, and that's reboot most of the game, implement all new gameplay features. I think it's safe to say that everyone is considerably sick of the Madden series right now. They've been lazy, plain and simple.
Has the game improved? Sure, SLIGHTLY. Since the series came to PS2 though, has it really come that far? No. We're into next-gen gaming now, and you're still getting basically the same build of the same game you've been playing since the PS2/Xbox days, only with better graphics and some slight gameplay/animation tweaks. That's pretty unacceptable, and the only reason they get away with it is because they're the only football game in town. Other developers would KILL with the opportunity of having the NFL license all to themselves, yet the Madden series just kind of lazily put out a weak product for a number of years now, since people will buy it regardless. You can't even say they haven't been lazy, since the game still suffers from the same problems it had since 2001-2002. How is it that WR's/QB's still have no idea that the sidelines exist? How could that still be happening over 5 years and the next generation of gaming later? Or that offensive linemen don't even attempt to block defenders at times? Or that you can dominate the game with a garbage QB, as long as his speed rating is an 85 or higher?
Look what Sony did with the Show, why can't the Madden team do something like that? Every year I say "This will be the year they finally turn it around", yet every year you get that same Madden game, updated roster, slight gameplay tweaks that don't even really matter to you a month after playing the game, it's just getting old. I want to like Madden and have fun playing the game, but it's just become so hard to at this point. I feel like I'm wasting my money every year, but I love football, I still have love for the Madden franchise, so I have to get my fix of football gaming. Madden is the only option, yet instead of taking advantage of that fact, they've dropped the ball.