Every team DOESN'T run a 4-2-5 defense

Items 1,3 and 4 on your list are consistently mentioned in this and other threads in the College Football 26 threads..Sadly none of us feel like EA cares to address these as these have been issues year after year. 

Stadium Pulse is extremely OP. Icons of receivers should not dissappear or turn to ? EVER. No QB in history has not been able to see or throw to a receiver due to stadium noise. 

The no lower tier item IMO is unique. I have a strong feeling that there are lower tier teams being used(tier 4 and 5) but EA is filtering them out when  you use say tier 1 team. In no way should I have to play basically a SEC schedule plus play against Ohio State and Wildcat State(aka Penn State) ever single season. 

Time will tell if the do anything to address this stuff. 

I'm not sure I understand your question. How is EA forcing everyone to run a 4-2-5 defense? My team has 4-3, 4-6, Nickel, Dime, etc. I'm guessing 4-2-5 would be Nickel defense. 

If you look at the defensive playbook in road to CFP games, it's always the 4-2-5 set of plays. 

My team runs a 3-3-5 Tite. Which carries a whole different set of plays, but I can't use it in this mode. 

So in essence there's no point in even labbing their true defense, since I can't use it here. 

I agree with you. They could care less. Even if the entire community hates these things. 

So long as they get us to drop some $. They know once Madden drops, our care level drops to a Net Zero. 

Are you saying that when you play Road to CFB playoff, you don't have access to the same defensive plays that you would when you play "Play Now" or other modes for the same team? That's not what I'm seeing. I use the same team, and I always have access to that team's playbooks in all modes. 

To address this issue:

"3. No real incentive for folks to play with lower tier, so we're pretty much all forced to end up playing a bunch of Tier 1 teams"

I always set my opponent tier to tier 5 and then it usually just picks up the highest tier it can find. I usually end up playing tier 3 teams. I always play as a tier 3 team.