First of all I would like to say welcome to JohnW. I hope you stay here and have a good time. And I hope the setup tips I gave you served you well.
I not gonna go into this discussion big time, but I would like to point out a simple thing.
It would seem that many people feel that the ability to go on the internet and state your opinion to a huge audience from almost anywhere in the world, makes common sense and good manners obsolete. A thing of the past, that can be dispensed with at leisure...
Picture this:
I walk into a room where a bunch of heavy duty soccer players and fans are gathered. They are quite busy, discussing whatever details and aspects of their favourite pastime that come to mind. Some of them even seem to know each other quite well. No one seems have seen my, or to mind my presence, and in fact I didn't even need an invitation. I could right in, since the front door was wide open. I decide to ask some questions. There is a bowl with blank nametags and a pen on the table beside me. So I grab a tag and the pen, and scribble a name on the tag, and put it on my shirt.
Satisfied that everyone will be able to see my alias, I shout: "Who cares about offside rules and penalty kicks! Thats just fluff! The main thing is that the players do spectacular and fascination moves, outsmarting each other, and winning duels through pure exellence of technique and teamwork! And the umpire is a fool! Why can't we have state of the art video coverage, so we can dispense with these ridiculous rulings, that are so often blatantly unfair. Decisions like these are important, and we can't rely on the human factor here. We need some major changes to this game, or I am not gonna waste a minute on it! So is this gonna be fixed before the next World Championship or what?"
How would these people react to me? Would any of you even think of doing like this? Or how about walking into a chess club and saying:
"The knight can move 2 steps on way and then 1 in a 90 degree angle? And he can jump over pieces?!? You must be kidding me!"
Or how about walking into a comic book store and shouting: "Why can't you understand that Spiderman should have been dead a million times over. Come on, he can't possibly do all that stuff and survive!"
Or wandering into a Counter-strike forum and posting: You think you can dodge bullets by jumping around like Bugs Bunny? Are you on drugs?!?"
I don't think that there are many other places you could have chosen JohnW that could present so many and so dedicated fans of GP4. When you open a can of whup-ass on the design decisions in the game in your first post, you are asking for trouble. You are shouting at the wrong people. They had no influence on these choices...
I would kill to get the design features you are asking for, and yes, I had been hoping so much for them to be there. Suspension geometry, and tyres temps/pressure is important. (Btw, torque has been modelled since GP3. It was at max output at 10.000-12.000 rpm before, now its 12.000-14000 rpm, give or take a few rpm. I cannot remember the exact figures). But they are not there!!!
So I, like everyone else, had to find out whether the game could be fun or not, with these shortcomings. I am having the time of my life. If you do not expect to get the same satisfaction out of the game, I feel that it is a damn shame. But it is no justification for thoroughly pissing off the people that actually can have some fun with GP4. You can express whatever opinion you want to, but if you can't play nice while you do it, please go play somewhere else... And I certainly would like to extend that piece of advice to Eugene as well. At first glance you made me think big time Troll-alert, but on second thought I would rather think of your behaviour as... well, rather uncouth.
And if you (now JohnW again) were looking for information, you probably would have been much better served by asking questions about information first, and saving the opinions for your second post.
And if you wanted an unbiased opinion, you should probably ask some people that have played the game for an extended period that didn't want to continue. IMHO they have the best insight as to what the shortcomings (minor as well as severe) of the game are, since they have been put off by it. Asking those that are playing the living @!#$ out GP4 every day and are having a blast for something that even comes close to a balanced assesment is asking for far too much. You wouldn't ask Magic Johnson (skill not withstanding) about what the crappy things about basketball are, would you?
Things got out of hand, granted. There are some rather appalling stuff in this thread, and I deliberately waited before posting this, so that I would not be caught up in the melee of the hot tempers. And granted, you might not have been the dude that drew first blood, but you definately supplied the gunpowder for the explosion. I have absolutely no intention of rekindling the flames. They have burned enough people already.
I just want to point out a more graceful approach and a more well thought out opening post, could have provided you with most of the information you wanted, and spared you the trouble of an extended forum skirmish. Just like the approach you used when you asked for help with setups and when you asked for help with the Force feedback for your wheel.
It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.