I agree with everything you've said here, but one thing that has been so troubling about the madden team is this. They are not making an adventure game here. It's not something that needs to be "invented". You are making a sports game where the premise of the game starts with COPYING something that exists in real life. The challenge comes with attempting to MODEL that real world element.
What frustrates the living hell out of me (and many others apparently), is that instead of starting with what happens in real life, they think that they can re-invent football concepts that will be "more fun" in their game. That's why people are so enamored with the Show and NBA 2k. They start with modeling real life. They don't invent some sort of "funned" up version of that. You're copying what's real, that is what makes sports games so special. It provides a doorway for us to step into the life of pro athletes, GMs and owners. That's what makes it fun. If you strip away the realism aspects, it's just another arcade game that makes me lose interest in an hour.
All of the BS excuses about competitive/Sim or whatever is nonsense. You build the game with the idea of simulating the real thing FIRST. Then you provide as many options as possible to customize that experience to fit the fringe users. Your core fan base is your bread and butter, but you will attract the casual gamers if you allow them to customize to their level. All of the successful sports franchises do this - EXCEPT MADDEN. Madden starts with the lowest common denominator and then tries to band aid the simulation aspects in after the fact, which is much more difficult. Then they turn around and tell the consumer that there are "technical challenges". I'm sorry, but they're not a good development studio. The "suits" are not telling them that they need to rewrite the same stuff every year because the previous year it was a mess. Further, the consumer shouldn't care if that is what's going on. That's their problem and they should be the ones to solve it.