I have to respectfully disagree here with, well, just about everything you wrote
I think everyone can agree that Madden on next gen has been a colossal failure. That's been well documented by the community and even by many of the developers themselves. Although I personally did not like Madden 10, there were improvements for sure. The problem is that there is no competition (which is obvious) and that the executives at EA want to grow the madden base. They are not concerned with 35-40 year old football heads like many of us. They are focusing on the next generation of gamers, mainly younger kids. They feel that if they can make the game easier to just pick up and play, the casual football fan who plays games sometimes, will walk into the store and pick it up. The executives are not interested in the older, hardcore football guys as much because they know many of those folks are already hooked and will make a purchase no matter what they put in the box.
The other item is the fact that they don't want to make the game "too good" in one year, so as to hurt the sales the following year. That's why the hype train is down this year. Not hyping as much gets people to purchase for the gameplay improvements, but it REALLY hypes them for next year, with the promises of improved franchise.
Unfortunately this is all marketing and business 101. From a purely business perspective, it's a brilliant marketing scheme and it rakes in millions each year. You have to hand them that. Executives at EA care about one thing and one thing only... sales and the stock price. That's it. That's what every big public company cares about. The bad part in all of this is the consumer gets the shaft.
None of this is news so the best we can do is be active in the community, try to push for what we want in a great football game, and see what comes out on the other end. I've always been very critical of Madden and how EA Tiburon does things, but I always have an open mind. At the end of the day all I want is what everyone else wants, a great playing, realistic football game.