The overall grind has to carry over to new characters. Not saying your new characters need to be 96 as well but it should already have the attributes unlocked like how if you unlocked superstar 1, the extra attributes carried over.
It makes no sense at all to have someone start the grind over especially since 2k knows everyone likes to have about 4 or 5 players. All you're doing is discouraging people from making multiple players and if players are not making multiple players, then that's less vc being brought and less money for 2k to make