I still think this revolves around EA still viewing Franchise Mode as being Be-A-GM mode. It isn't about the franchise, it's about putting the player in as a GM and having them contend with a stingy owner who won't spend enough to keep the stadium nice while still demanding that you upgrade two different things in the arena and keep fan happiness to 99 when it measures it at a date where fan happiness has decayed even if you won the Stanley Cup with fan happiness of 100.
They need to shift to a Team Owner concept behind franchise mode to get them to go beyond 25 years. Hell, I'd give them all the details on how to design it in depth if they matched my salary and benefits from the job I hate.
