I think that's fair (that it's more personal preference than not understanding), but the problem is that the concepts being used for CFM aren't there because it's CFM, they exist because it fits within the vision of Looman and the other designers.
My point being that even if they never went the CCM/CFM route and stuck with separate modes, a lot of the direction for franchise aspects would have likely been the same (XP, gameplanning, etc) as a matter of moving the modes forward.
So it's not so much an issue with CFM vs franchise, it's simply an issue of the general vision and direction for such a mode (for those that have issues to that end, of course...obviously there are plenty who are on-board with the direction).