NFS Heat Multiplayer??

One takeaway from playing about 8 hours of the trial is that the "multiplayer" matching is very inadequate.  I noticed most of the time there were 10 to 16 players in the session but when I would invite "everyone" to a race I would see "1/2" or "1/4" in the upper right of the screen indicating how many players had been invited to the race.  I never saw more than 4 invited.  Many times it simply displayed 1/1.  

I never had a race with more than 4 actual human players in it.  Many times I had no one join.  Waste of time.

Anyone from Ghost @BenWalke have insight into this?  I'd like to see races with at least 8 players in them.  

Also, when are speedlists or custom public lobbies coming?