I second everything you’ve said here. The update is abysmal. Gameplay is so freaking sludgy. Even top players feel “heavy.” And don’t even get me started on the shooting and goalkeeping. Ugh.
As for F2P and P2P, I’ve been posting for months now about EA has created a two-tiered system — one for wealthy “whales,” and one for the rest of us who can’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars a month. It’s a virtual caste system and it’s antithetical to the type of community that once existed around this game. But that, apparently, is the way EA wants it and so we see more and more long-time users bailing it. Who can blame them?