I ran a 7' 294 lb pure athletic last year. He was an in shorter than real rookie shaq was. But man, oh man, was he fun. One of my first builds this year was a pure athletic 6'10 275 lb PF. The differences were striking.
With the nerf to bigs finishing inside and the blow by animation essentially gone, that build was rendered completely useless.
Its nice if you can get close to those builds you want with height/weight. But if the mechanics dont honor the badges and ratings then its hard to justify those builds online.
I can play career with my pure athletic and drop 50 on the cpu getting dunk after dunk. But when I play online, I'm lucky to score in the tens. Even putbacks are damn near impossible and thats supposed to be what athletic bigs do best.