I feel like the game is coded to produce an artificial number of "and inches" outcomes to create more dramatic situations. Defenders seem to get an incredible boost in tackling at the first down marker and ball carriers get passive animations too often in those scenarios. As you say the ball marking is bogus much of time too. The only saving grace is that it affects both the User and CPU the same.
I disagree with the title of the thread though. Some presentation elements were better in the past, but IMO the gameplay of Madden was not more authentic than what we have today. Expectations are just exponentially higher than they've ever been before.