One more thing I wanted to add (having read your post and agreeing with you especially on the thing about people not being able to figure out how to fully control their player and then saying it sucks) the fact that although I think I DID know about it, I seem to have completely forgotten about Fluid Formations until yesterday when I came across it by accident. I now have to find a tutorial or something because I completely forgot how it works. But that's like opening up a whole new section of the game I had forgotten about. I honestly think, because I don't really care much about the images and artwork, that PES2018 would be better than FIFA for playing a World Cup this summer as long as I can find a good patch or option file with all the latest uniforms and squads.
Actually a second thing, just occurred to me... one of the things I love most about PES that you can't do in FIFA unless you edit some of the ini files is run too far. In FIFA I feel like I can turn on a dime with ANY player of ANY skill level. And one thing I love about sports games is when I have to be as careful with my controls as players do in real life. Even with Cristiano Ronaldo, if you're racing down the flank top speed, you do actually have to calculate space to stop and turn because your momentum CAN actually make you go too far or you DO manage to stop but you lose the ball because you overrun it. Along with that is not standing in the right place and kicking a ball with the side of your foot, passing too quickly and not getting enough force on the ball, deking too fast with a player with lesser skill and losing control of the ball... all those things are the kind of thing I love seeing in sports games. Same type of realistic physics you find in MVP 2005, NFL 2K5, NHL 2K8. PES is a rarity in modern sports games for its commitment to realistic physics. Although to be fair, in the essential things, FIFA is fine, it just lacks refinement in depicting realism and I get that it does that in order to be pleasing to a wider range of people's abilities. They want kids to play it as much as adults and that means you need to make it easier to pick up and play. And increasing the difficulty level i FIFA doesn't make the game more realistically challenging it just seems to crank everyone's intensity. Harder shouldn't mean "more aggressive" and "faster", it should mean more intelligent.